


This Is The Wonder That's Keeping The Stars Apart

by Ghislainem70



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bondage, D/s, Dom/sub, Drugs, Friendship, Kinks, Love, M/M, Missing Scenes, My kind of fix-it, Mystery, Past Torture, Post-Reichenbach, Romance, S3, S4 fix it eventually, Season/Series 03, Serbia - Freeform, Slow Burn, Torture, Unresolved Sexual Tension, dark!john, dub-con, post-series 3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-01-13 20:29:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 53,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1239787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghislainem70/pseuds/Ghislainem70
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John visits Sherlock's grave and tells him his secret.  That night, he learns that Sherlock had a secret, too, and John is irresistibly drawn to take a journey in that same world. Slow burn. My kind of fix-it.   Events will parallel and overlap with the events of Sherlock S2, S3, and S4.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One: The Anniversary

**Author's Note:**

> Readers may wish to take note of the tags.
> 
> Anybody interested in my other D/s works may like to read:
> 
> * Mad, Bad and Dangerous, a Frankenstein Tribute;  
> * Pulse;  
> * Tournament  
> 

 

 

Prelude.

On the third anniversary of the day he met Sherlock Holmes, and a year and a half after his death (John never, ever used the word suicide, not even when he was all alone, as he nearly always was, now), John visited Sherlock’s grave.

It was already looking a bit neglected. More than a bit, if he was being honest.   A fine coat of dirt had settled into the vivid letters against the black marble, and there was a bunch of withered flowers laying there. These had been left by someone else. He felt a twinge that he paused to identify as. . . he swallowed hard.

It had been a long time since he had seen his therapist. But now, struggling with the dark twinge in his chest, he remembered that she had said that he ought to “work on identifying his feelings.” Not the everyday feelings like being tired or hungry or aggravated or -- ( _bored_ , a baritone voice whispered), not those; those were easy, and weren’t enough. She had wanted the hard ones. Anger. Fear. Loneliness.   Later, there had been other ones, but John’s mind couldn’t settle on those. Not before, and definitely not afterward.

So, John acknowledged the twinge as. . . resentment? No, being honest was part of why he was here. It was jealousy, that was what the feeling was. Without picking around the edges of the jealousy as his therapist would no doubt have wanted, and specifically refusing to feel ashamed about it, John moved on to the simple task at hand.   He sighed and rubbed at Sherlock’s stone with his handkerchief until it was black and shining and mostly clean again.  

When he was finished, his mind, still so sluggish, skittered away from the remains of the jealousy to make a feeble attempt at deduction.   Mycroft wouldn’t leave flowers, if he came here at all after the formal necessity of the funeral.   Lestrade? No, Lestrade couldn’t bear the crushing weight of guilt, and John definitely hadn’t given him any reason to feel different.   The Woman – Irene Adler? Where did that come from? The jealousy, he supposed. The jealousy flared up at the mere thought of her name – _“the Whip Hand,”_ and he didn’t push it down like all the other times because today was about being honest, for once. Irene was dead too, of course.   But Irene had lived on at least in Sherlock’s memory, and almost certainly his music even if Sherlock would never admit such an intimate thing.  Sherlock had kept her mobile, a sleek, shining golden bauble, a strange sort of memento mori that Sherlock had curled his fingers around possessively.   John had thought about that a great deal more than he knew was healthy or sane, even then.   He wasn’t healthy or sane anymore, and maybe that was why today of all days, he was thinking about Irene. He imagined flowers from Irene Adler for Sherlock. . . they would be something exotic, something rare, something unique. Nothing like John Watson.

These flowers were just carnations. Now they were withered, brown and dry. He closed his eyes against the association that the image forced upon him, that flawless pale skin, blood in his hair and in the street. . . _Stop, stop it now_ , he told himself.   Honesty could only go so far.

Mrs. Hudson, then. She had left them. Now he was the one feeling the crush of guilt. He had avoided her more than Mycroft, more than Lestrade. She was the one that always assumed he was in love with Sherlock, and was always ready with a blithe quip and a blind eye to his everlasting protestations and denials.

So, today was about honesty. The last time he had visited Sherlock’s grave, he had asked him to give him a miracle, to stop this charade, to stop being dead.

John heard Sherlock’s voice, saw his face everywhere, and it wasn’t getting any better and he had admitted to himself quite recently that he didn’t want it to.   So in a sense, Sherlock had answered his prayer.

He couldn’t decide what to do with his hands. They were folded behind his back, but he took a step forward and put one hand firmly on the cold curve of the headstone. He knew was standing right over Sherlock’s grave, and imagined the expanse of dark earth between the soles of his feet and the lid of the coffin.

“Hello,” he said. “It’s John.   It’s been three years today. Since we met.  Did you know that? Probably not, you never were very good with time.   I’m no good with it now either. It’s like I’m. . . stuck, and I figure you know where.   Anyway, um. I thought a lot about what I should say today. And I decided that, umm, even though it’s too late. . ." He had to stop and clear his throat and dash away a few tears here, but he plunged on: “. . . far too late, I’m going to be honest. There’s something I always wanted to say to you, and never did.”

He could see the distorted reflection of his own face in the curve of the polished top of the gravestone. It seemed fitting, that he looked as twisted on the outside as he felt on the inside. Time to set it free.

“I love you. I was in love with you then, and I never said and you never knew. Hopelessly in love, in fact, since I’m trying to be honest. I know you didn’t want that from anybody, especially me. But it keeps me up at night, Sherlock-- if I had said it, if I had told you, would it have made the difference? Even at the last minute, up on that roof, would you have stopped if I said it then? I still wonder, every day, if you hadn’t felt so alone, if. . . because you told me once, you only had one friend, and that was me, and that obviously wasn’t enough. In the end. So I’m telling you now, and I’m so sorry I never did when I had the chance—“

He stopped himself from saying, _you brilliant bastard_ , because his feelings that had started with jealousy and twisted into the steady longing that he was never going to get used to and was never going to give up, kept him honest: “You, you were so beautiful to me, inside and out, not just your brilliant mind, I wish I had told you that, too. . .“

Now he could either keep on all day with the most ill-timed declaration of love that he figured there had ever been, or he could quit before he tore the remains of his heart to shreds.

“So I guess I know I’m not getting that miracle, and you aren’t coming back. But maybe you could see your way clear to send me a sign that you want me to keep on remembering like I do. Which is every hour of every day.”

He reached down for what he had brought for Sherlock. First he took away the withered carnations, and shoved them in his pocket. Then he took a deep breath, and put a single red rose on the grave. He smiled briefly. The red looked stunning against the glossy black marble, and he told himself that Sherlock would be secretly pleased by such a dramatic, romantic gesture -- even though he would never admit such an intimate thing.

The sun was setting, it was getting colder.   This bought one of the omnipresent visions of Sherlock in his coat, Sherlock before the fire in 221b, warmth after cold.   Time to go home, which would always be 221b, but wasn’t anymore.


	2. Chapter Two: Number Twenty-Five

 

 

 

People found John Watson, even after he moved away from 221b.

He never took new cases, though. He had a stack of Lestrade’s cards, and handed them over while saying as little as possible.  Also, it was a little surprising how many people still didn’t know Sherlock was dead, and wouldn’t believe that the great detective was permanently unavailable for consultation.

After his visit to Sherlock today and the unburdening of his guilty heart, he was in no mood for anything but whisky and the dark when his doorbell rang, two brief, polite buzzes. He couldn’t see down into the street like in Baker Street, but this flat had a peephole to look out, and he did, not caring that his visitor probably heard him on the other side of the door.

Tall. Slender.  Dark hair. Luxurious overcoat, thankfully a tweedy brown. Still, his heart contracted a little. He didn’t open the door, but he didn’t pull away either.

“Doctor Watson? I’ve come on a personal matter. It’s rather complicated. May I come in?”

“I don’t take-- cases,” John said through the door. “I can refer you to Scotland Yard.”

“It’s nothing that I want to involve the police in – won’t you let me talk to you, just for a minute?” The man’s voice was smooth, toff, and thankfully rather high pitched.

“No. I’m afraid I can’t,” John said. He did pity the man. He sounded. . . heartbroken. He huffed a small laugh. _Join the club_.

“In that case, I should tell you that you really don’t want to send me away, Doctor Watson. I have something that I think you’d be interested in,” the man pursued.

John was alert to any hint of threat, but the man didn’t sound like he was threatening anything. John evaluated the tone of his voice, and decided he sounded a little like a man that he had once interviewed with Sherlock. The man had been a collector of rare stamps. There was a special tone that he had when talking about his collection. This man sounded a little like that.

He looked at the glass of whisky in his hand, his companion for the evening.  He had a strong sensation of Sherlock, disapproving, even scornful. Turning away a potentially intriguing case in favour of sitting alone at night in his sterile flat, second-rate whisky and bad telly. He opened the door.

* * *

A whiff of elegant, expensive men’s cologne preceded the man who swept in rather dramatically, making John wince. Tall, slim, fit, and impeccably groomed. Chiseled jawline, unnaturally blue eyes (contacts there, John deduced), classically handsome but with an indefinable air of delicacy.

“Edwin Veere,” the man said, putting out his hand. John shook it.

“Drink?” John wasn’t in the mood for the niceties of tea, not after today and all that honesty. Maybe the distraction of a case was just the thing to get his mind off his lacerated heart.

Veere eyed the whisky, and politely shook his head in the negative. John could tell he was used to a far better class of liquor. He shrugged and poured himself another two fingers’ worth.

“I’m not a detective, you know. I’m a doctor. But I’m willing to listen, I figure you came a way to see me. Sherlock Holmes --- you do know he’s. . ." John stopped, and the man nodded with an expression of respectful sympathy. John distracted himself by examining the man more closely. He was groomed to a high sheen, like an expensive motorcar. John thought he looked like he lived in Knightsbridge. John noted the shopping bag, Hackett in Sloane Street. The man clutched the bag tighter.

“We were so sorry to hear of Mr. Holmes’ death. My condolences. If he were here, I believe he would want you to help me.”

John noted the “we,” and decided to let it stand, let the man tell his story in his own way, something that bored Sherlock nearly to tears-- but John Watson didn’t have anything else on tonight. Or any other night.

“Well, Sherlock. . . he was very particular about cases. He had a numerical system, a scale -- never mind. You said you had something I’d be interested in. Why don’t we start with that, if you don’t mind?” John was somewhat mesmerised by Veere’s hands, clutching the Hackett bag. His fingers were long and his nails well-groomed.

He also had definite red marks around his wrists that peeked out from his snowy shirt cuffs.

Raw, recent. John was under no illusions what had made the marks.  There were precise boundaries between the redness of the marks and the tanned skin --- _tanning bed, or recent holiday in the sun?_ he wondered idly. It was the sort of thing that Sherlock would have been able to tell at glance.

As was the fact that Veere had been bound in handcuffs, possibly as recently as this morning. And he didn’t think it was trouble with the police. The hair on the back of his neck pricked, ever so gently.

“I’m here because my. . . friend, Jason Kilbraith, is missing.  Since two days ago.”

“And you haven’t told the police?”

“No.”

John had already deduced the reason for that. The story was in the cuff marks, plain to see.

“Is Jason hurt?”

Veere bit his lip. “Not the way you mean.”

John stood up. He had a definite feeling he didn’t want to get involved in this, and didn’t want to examine why. Honesty today was for Sherlock, but that was over and finished now.

“Look.  I think I can, ah, reassure you. This sort of thing, your friend – it’s not a crime, you know. The police will look for him and help you find him, if you report it. You can even talk to a friend of mine at Scotland Yard, he’s not missing persons but he’ll help if I ask.”

Veere shook his head and reached inside the bag. He withdrew a mobile.

“It’s not something I can take to the police, and you won’t understand unless you look at this.” Veere looked at him with steady, pleading eyes. _Used to getting his way_ , John thought, and the idea made him unaccountably angry for a moment. John was actually across the room now, opening the door. This had been a bad idea. He was in no fit shape to help anyone, not himself and especially not reckless, expensive toy-boys who liked to play games with handcuffs. Anyone could guess where that kind of thing could end up if things got out of hand. John had seen the evidence on Molly’s slab more than once.

* * *

He held out one of Lestrade’s cards.

“If you won’t go to the police, then I think you’d better leave. I’m not really. . . good with this kind of thing,” he said as Veere was fiddling with the touch screen on the mobile. There was the sound of a smattering of applause from the tiny speaker, which was surprisingly loud in the quiet of the flat, and a male voice said,

“ _Now to Number 25. Some of you may well say we have saved the very best for last. Number 25 needs no introduction here. As stated in the prospectus, this specimen is reserved for those with a demonstrated track record with rebellion, especially topping from below.  Discerning bidders will see that he is worth every penny_. ”

John closed his eyes. He didn’t want to look at the screen. “Is that your friend Jason? He’s got himself into, what, some kind of sex ring?”

Veere smiled a little, a soft, secret smile. “Please just listen, Doctor Watson."

There was a silence, and then a murmuring of the crowd. There was an indistinct voice, a woman’s. _“I should like three, please,”_ she said, as though choosing chocolates at an exclusive confectioner’s shop.

John heard the distinct whiz and snap of a whip, or maybe a crop, on bare flesh. He didn’t know how he knew this for sure, but under the circumstances it couldn’t be anything else. He stopped himself imagining it. The room felt warmer, close even with the door open. He wondered if his neighbor could hear this.

He closed the door.

“ _Count for mistress, Number 25_ ,” the male voice said sharply.

“ _One_ ,” Sherlock said, rock steady and politely contemptuous.

John was immobilized by the cold, cold spike that drove through his gut and pierced the last remaining scraps of his heart. He was glad for the chill, it distanced him from the threat, or maybe it was the promise, of heat jolting his cock, low and vicious and raw. It was true what he had said to Sherlock today at his grave. He was always stuck in time now, in that sliver of a moment before Sherlock fell from the roof, that moment when John could still hear Sherlock’s breath, maybe even the choking back of tears, he could never decide, in the infinitesimal moment before he said, “ _Goodbye, John.”_

There was another crack, another smack. “ _Two_ ,” Sherlock snapped, coldly superior. John closed his eyes, ignored the horrible weight and heat in his cock, refusing to actually look at the mobile screen.

* * *

It was the first time he had heard Sherlock’s voice since that day. And it shook him, finally, out of frozen time. He felt a stab of greed and held out his hand for the mobile without a word. Veere took one look at his face and gave it to him, and he closed his fingers around it tightly, remembering the first day at Barts, handing Sherlock his mobile. Sherlock deducing him, taking him apart. As much as John would allow. Which was quite a lot, and not enough.

John's fingertip slid down to find the little button on the side of the mobile that silenced the sound before Sherlock could count, “three.”

Veere said, “Mr. Holmes set a record that day, did you know? I’m certain that the man that bought Mr. Holmes is the one that has Jason. And if we don’t find him soon, I’m afraid it’ll be too late.”

John opened his eyes, looked at Veere for a long minute. Veere looked down, unable to face whatever he saw in John’s eyes.

“I’ll take the case,” John said over the hard lump in his throat. “On one condition.”

“Name it. Money is no object, I assure you.” Veere was reaching for his wallet. John shook his head sharply, and Veere’s manicured hand crept back into his pocket.

“I keep the mobile.“

Veere nodded. “Of course, sir.”

“No need to call me sir,” John said shortly. His hand worried at the mobile. Sherlock’s voice.

Sherlock, dead and gone and in his grave.

In his mind he heard Sherlock counting, “ _Three,”_ with magnificent insolence, before stopping himself imagining more. Sick, so sick, he must be very sick to want to hear this. Maybe he would delete it. He promised himself that he would delete it.

“Please sit down,” John said.

Veere sat quietly in the chair opposite John. “Where should I start?”

John took a hard swallow of the whisky and focused on the burn, all the way down, a strange contrast to the sluggish ice in his veins, the whispered threat of fire beneath.  Then he realised that he wanted to be alert, awake, more than any time he could remember since. . .

He put the whisky down.

“Start at the beginning,” he said.

* * *

"Do you believe in fate, sir?" Edwin Veere asked diffidently.

John waited a beat, decided not to correct him again about calling him "sir."

He almost thought Veere was possibly angling for just that, which might have made him smirk except that Veere still had that heartbroken air. The question, at least, was seriously meant. It was also a question that he had had the leisure to dwell upon at length over the past year.

Fate. Had it allowed him to survive Afghanistan? Did it lead him to Sherlock Holmes? Moriarty? Was it fate that led Sherlock to throw himself from that rooftop? This took him straight back to his confession in the graveyard today, and his omnipresent guilt: if he had just told the truth, could he have saved Sherlock, changed the course of fate?

"I don't know," he said.

"Jason does. Believe in fate. He believed it was fate that he would meet Guy Clement, and be with him. He was obsessed with the idea."

"Mr. Clement is the man that you think has Jason? He's being held against his will?"

"Not against his will. It's hard to explain."

John still held the mobile. If he turned it back on, he could hear Sherlock's voice. He didn't deny to himself that he wanted that. His finger stroked the cold metal. "You were going to start at the beginning," he reminded Veere.

"Yes. The name Guy Clement doesn't mean anything to you, then?" Veere seemed slightly surprised at this, but he covered it well.

"No. Is he French?"

"He's English. According to Jason. Jason knows everything about Guy Clement. Well, I should say, everything that can be known, which isn't much, actually. Well. . . I guess he knows more, now. Much more. I think I'll have that drink. Please."

John poured it out and watched him drink, a delicate sip. Something in his tone, "please," gave John had the impression that he was possibly accustomed to being required to ask for food and drink, or beg for it. Which revolted him.

"Go on," he said gruffly.

"I've never met Clement. Guy Clement is a banker. One of those private banks, you know, Clement & Co. Like the Rothschilds, or Harrods Bank, but more. . . exclusive. He lives in London, but he has other places. He's well known in certain circles-- although he's practically a recluse. That woman you heard on the mobile, she works for him. Laura Pond. She bought Mr. Holmes as Clement's agent at the London slave auction."

The very idea made John's heart race, adrenalin pumping and sweat breaking out on the palms of his hands from strong emotion that he didn't dare examine now. He would think about it later. A slave auction, in London. He closed his eyes and willed himself to calm, which worked.

"When? When did this happen?" He was satisfied that his tone was low and even and didn't betray him.

"Three years ago. It was June of 2009. Jason trained for months. He was so sure he would be taken on as Clement's slave. It's all he wanted. But Mr. Clement chose Sherlock Holmes."

"Slave." The word tasted strangely on his tongue. "There are terms, I gather?"

"Six month contract, with options to extend if mutually agreeable. I'm sorry, sir, I assumed -- "

"-- look, if I'm going to take this case, please just answer my questions and don't worry about what I know and what I don't."

"Of course. I'm sorry. About the contract. . . Clement had never been known to extend a contract--"

John frowned at the implication that Sherlock had been found unsatisfactory by this Guy Clement, with only the vaguest ideas what "satisfactory" and "unsatisfactory" entailed in this setting. The very few BDSM scenes he had ever witnessed had been in porn handed around during his stint in the Army, so bad as to be almost comical. It was nothing he had ever sought out. That, and a few rather terrible, sad cases with Lestrade. Nothing that fit his idea of Sherlock Holmes, even if he had never conceived of such a thing in connection with Sherlock up until half an hour ago.

Veere, alert to his expression, raised his hand as if in protest. Which had the effect of pulling back those dazzling white cuffs so that the red marks from the handcuffs were fully exposed, and he caught Veere glancing at him through lowered lashes, to see if he noticed. John looked away.

"Well?"

"-- I should have said, until Mr. Holmes. And Mr. Holmes was even more private than Guy Clement, if that means anything. I don't know anyone who claimed to know Sherlock Holmes personally. But rumour was that it was Mr. Holmes who declined to extend the contract."

John nodded slowly. "That would have been December of 2009?" It had to be, he found himself almost praying. _Let it not be after._

"That's right," Veere said. "Jason was so excited. There was a special Christmas party and he thought he would have his chance --- but it didn't work out. Clement didn't come."

December 2009. He met Sherlock a month later. The case of the wicked cabbie and the poison pills, the Study in Pink. He let himself go back to Angelo's, candle on the table.

_"So, you don't have a girlfriend, then?"_

_"Girlfriend? No, not really my area."_

_"Oh. Right, then... Do you have a boyfriend? Which is fine, by the way."_

_"I know it's fine."_

_"So, you got a boyfriend?"_

_"No."_

_"Right. Okay. You're unattached. Like me. Fine. Good."_

_"John, um. . . I think you should know that I consider myself married to my work, and while I'm flattered by your interest, I'm really not looking for any. . . "_

_"No. I'm. . . not asking. No. I'm just saying, it's all fine."_

_"Good. Thank you."_

 * * *

Sitting across the tiny table, less than three feet away, so close he could see the lights from the street through the window highlighting Sherlock's impossible cheekbones, Sherlock had seen, couldn't have possibly missed, that he was interested-- just as Sherlock had so easily seen that he was a shot-up soldier, an army doctor invalided home from Afghanistan, with a therapist and a psychosomatic limp and a recently divorced alcoholic sibling. Sherlock hadn't made a single mistake deducing anything about John Watson himself, especially that he was _interested_ in Sherlock Holmes in a way that went beyond potential flat sharing. Even though he denied it. Even though he took the flat.

_(I researched you. Before we met I discovered everything that I could to impress you. It's a trick. It's just a magic trick.)_

And Sherlock had impressed John, almost always, and John had been surprised at how much he enjoyed praising Sherlock, watching his words light him up. _That,_ he thought, _was the real magic._

The scenario on the mobile gave a whole new perspective on what Sherlock had meant by _"not my area."_ Girlfriends, boyfriends. . . Sherlock had been operating on a different level entirely. Sherlock was "married to his work." Work, it appeared, that had been more than just being a consulting detective. There were words for it, he knew what they were from cases: BDSM. Dominant. Submissive.

Dom.

Sub.


	3. Chapter Three: Blue Velvet

 

 

 

"Okay.  Right.  Ah, who took the video on this mobile?"

"Ah, I'm not sure I should tell you that."

"If you want me to help, you have to answer my questions or the deal is off. Who took the video of Mr. Holmes?"

"Laura Pond. Ah, you see. . . as I said. Jason was trying to meet Clement. He managed to get an invitation to a club where he knew Laura Pond would be. He, ah, borrowed Ms. Pond's mobile from her handbag and downloaded the video clips to the mobile that you're holding."

"Why would he do that?"

"Jason wanted to study him. How Mr. Holmes had captured Clement's attention."

He imagined this man, Jason, watching Sherlock avidly, picking him apart for clues. He felt sorry for Jason. He didn't know anything about this world ( _yet,_ something wicked inside whispered), but he was certain that no one could have outshone Sherlock if he really wanted to impress.

"You mean Jason picked Ms. Pond's pocket and hacked her mobile? I'm assuming it would have been passcode protected."

Veere nodded. "Jason is a software designer. But he's not a thief."

"So. . . you're trying to tell me you have some reason to believe that Mr. Clement is the reason he's missing?"

"Jason couldn't let go of his. . . obsession with Clement. He could never settle down, if you know what I'm saying. Jason has a bit of a reputation, always with a new dom, never finding what he's looking for. People -- the right kind of people --- started to avoid him. But two months ago, he called. He'd been invited to a new club, so private he couldn't tell me anything about it. He wouldn't say, but I could tell he was trying to let me know he had finally met Guy. He said he wouldn't be around for a while, but that he knew he was going to be very, very happy."

Veere didn't look at all happy.

"You didn't want Jason to go with Clement. Or anybody else."

Veere covered his face with his hands. "It's that obvious? There was never any way it could work. We're both... well, I can never be what he wants. He can't really be what I want, either. But I still love him. I don't expect you to understand."

John thought he understood too well.

* * *

"It's all right," he said, surprising himself with how much he wished he could soothe the man's pain a little. His dark head bent, he looked very alone. When they worked on cases, him and Sherlock, he was always the one that tried to help the other victims. The survivors. Trying to deflect Sherlock from saying things that hurt, trying to help them find their way to the other side. Even though it never worked. In his experience, there really was no way to the other side of death. Well, no way but one.

There were five stages of mourning, he had learned. One year on, and he was still at the bargaining stage, with two feet straying into the depression stage and not the slightest desire to move on to acceptance. The idea actually made him sadder. He could never, ever _accept_ Sherlock's death.

"I heard rumours that Jason was finally with Mr. Clement. He had sent me a few postcards, places around the world. I'll show you, if you think they would help. I got a few calls, he wouldn't tell me anything. I understood. Mr. Clement is supposed to be very strict about privacy. But Jason sounded, well. . . looking back, I'm not sure he was as happy as he wanted me to think. Then a few days ago, he called and said he was coming back but that he couldn't go home, would I meet him, he would text me the address. He wouldn't stay on the phone and when I called back, I couldn't get an answer. And I never heard from him again."

"Maybe he just changed his mind."

"No. You didn't hear his voice. Once Jason decides he's finished with an arrangement, he's finished. And he sounded. . . upset."

"Upset? Or frightened?"

"Maybe both," Veere said. "I just want to find him, to make sure he knows he can still come to me. Well, he ought to know that anyway. He's never been in any kind of scenario where he wasn't allowed phone calls or even to see friends in his free time. He wouldn't put me to this kind of worry. Not unless something was seriously wrong."

John thought it sounded like maybe this Jason was playing Veere for attention, trying to make him jealous, keep him on the hook.

"I assume that there's never been any hint of this Guy Clement being dangerous? I mean, this whole, ah, lifestyle, I know it can be dangerous--"

"No. Not in our world. Nobody does anything with anybody else that isn't, well, safe within agreed limits."

"You forget I did work with Sherlock Holmes. And Scotland Yard. I've seen otherwise, let's say that."

Veere turned pale. "But that's different. People do crazy things, and our . . . kind, we get painted with the same brush. There are individuals who go in for, ah, more intense scenarios. That's never been Jason and I've never heard a hint of it about Clement. Still, he has a reputation. I always tried to discourage Jason's fascination with him."

"Okay, why?"

"Because his subs end up killing themselves."

* * *

John went very still. Sherlock was falling, falling, and everything was getting darker. He stood up, turned away from Veere and switched on a lamp, focused on the light.

"I'm sorry, Doctor Watson, I didn't want to say that. You have to believe me. It's true. Guy's past four subs -- they all committed suicide."

"Don't--" John said, his voice too tight. Suicide. "Don't tell me you're including _Sherlock._ "

"Well, yes, to be honest. I'm sorry. I read what was put in the papers about Mr. Holmes claiming to be a fake. I couldn't believe that. He was known, you know, by reputation-- as I said, Mr. Holmes didn't seem to be personally known by anybody -- maybe except Guy Clement. You would know about that, right?"

John refused to acknowledge the question. The very idea that there was someone out there who had known Sherlock, better than he had. Much better. His innards felt like they were being slowly strangled with knotted rope, and he had to bite back a bitter smile at the rightness of that image.

"But he had his reputation," Veere said. "In our circles, I guess you'd say, Sherlock Holmes was was known to be . . . exceptionally brilliant. Impossible, but brilliant. And proud. For a sub. Not like someone who would have to fake being a genius. And I thought . . . well, Mr. Holmes wouldn't want to tell the truth, would he? He had his pride."

"The truth? What do you know about it?" He couldn't decide if he wanted to strike the man for gross presumption or whether he was dazzled with hope that Veere really did know the truth.

"That he couldn't get over it. Whatever it was between him and Guy Clement. That he couldn't live knowing --"

"Stop now," John said softly so that Veere had to bend closer to hear him. "You don't know what you're talking about, do you hear? You're wrong. Let's just--"

He opened the door, felt a blast of cold air from the stair against his face. _Wind rushing past Sherlock's hair on the way down._

"If you have any photos, postcards, anything else you want me to see, bring them in the morning. But leave now."

"But you'll help?" Veere's eyes shone blue in the lamplight, and John just needed him gone. He gently touched his shoulder to propel him out the door.

"Oh, yes. Definitely," he said, and shut the door and listened to Veere's feet down the stair.

* * *

It was another glass, two really, of whisky before he switched the mobile on.

 _"Two,"_ Sherlock snapped, coldly superior.

First glance: Sherlock was standing on a kind of platform. The lighting was artful, like a scene in a theatre, and it threw the planes and angles of Sherlock's body into high relief. There was a velvet backdrop. The theatrical quality of the scene was deliberate, he thought. Sherlock was naked, and his hair was a bit longer than he had seen it, dark and curling around his head like a halo. And a man standing behind him was striking him with a crop. On his arse. And Sherlock was bent forward slightly to accept the blows, a sort of obscene formality to his posture.

Once he got over the shock of seeing Sherlock naked for the first time ( _closest had been Sherlock's brattish prank at Buckingham Palace,_ he thought, _teasing Mycroft -- and maybe me? -- wrapped in a bedsheet and nothing else_ ), his first thought was that he looked like some kind of feral angel, fiercely intelligent and contemptuous of the lowly beings who surrounded and watched him with greedy, discerning eyes. In other words, not terribly different to Sherlock in ordinary surroundings. Except that he was naked.

He put the mobile down, confused about whether he really ought to watch more. It didn't seem to be in any way helpful to the case, despite what Veere had said. The mobile had been a ploy to get his attention. It had worked, of course.

He stared at the mobile. Under the black glass, if he wanted, he could press a button and Sherlock would appear like magic, naked and proud and allowing himself to be beaten with a crop within the confines of the tiny screen.

Then he decided that if today was about honesty, there was really only one thing to do.

He went into his bedroom, where there was a box in the closet containing an expensive projector and mobile speakers and a tangle of cords. They had used this gear often enough for cases. He plugged everything together and sat on the edge of the bed.

He switched on the projector and it threw a glowing lifesize image of Sherlock against the wall.

He hit pause.

Sherlock stood frozen on the platform. They had chosen the colour well, midnight blue velvet, almost black, his eyes otherworldly in their iciness, his skin creamy pale. John imagined that the crop was making the skin on his arse blotched with red, and just like that the unwelcome heat flooded his hips and belly like somebody had thrown a switch. He didn't touch himself.

He was fascinated by Sherlock's expression. Disdainful. He stood up, looked closer. More than disdain, more than pride. Something else. Yes. Sherlock also looked lost, but he didn't think anybody else in the world would know that. Certainly nobody in that room could have known it. _Other than Guy Clement,_ the wicked voice in his head whispered, and it made him furious.

But Sherlock had chosen this, hadn't he? Chosen to stand up there and be sold, be abused for the pleasure of others. Presumably also for his own pleasure, although John finally allowed himself to let his eyes travel down that long, muscled torso to see his cock, which wasn't hard.

"He doesn't want you all looking at him," John whispered. He touched the wall where Sherlock's face burned through the projector lens, touched his lips and eyes and hair, imagining stroking and maybe even pulling the curls a little, and the bright image floated over the skin of his arm and hand as he traced Sherlock's face.

"Beautiful," he whispered, because he had told Sherlock at the grave that he wished he had told him that, when he had the chance.

Sherlock looked back at him, cold and proud and lost.

For the second time today, he started to make feeble deductions through the fog of whisky. It was part of the process of this slave auction to be put on display, obviously. He imagined that Sherlock would have tried to find a way around it. His mind was full of a different image, Sherlock in wrapped in his omnipresent coat, tightly tailored suits and shirts, concealing everything. Had they concealed bruises, other marks? _It was over with Clement in December,_ he repeated like a mantra. _December of 2009, one month before Sherlock met Doctor John Watson, formerly of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. Sherlock couldn't have gone back to this._

_* * *_

There were some places where even Sherlock Holmes couldn't bend the rules, and this slave auction was obviously one.

He further imagined that all that Sherlock had really wanted by doing this was to be "bought" by Guy Clement. He figured that had to have been Sherlock's purpose, because that's what had happened, which meant Sherlock had planned it.

 _Wanted it,_ he told himself with a sick, sick pang. John Watson didn't know anything about this different kind of world, secret world, doms and subs and slaves and auctions and crops and "count for mistress."

But he did know that Sherlock Holmes wouldn't have let himself just be sold randomly to the highest bidder, like a prize racehorse or an rare automobile or a fine antique at Sotheby's. Even for half a million pounds, or more-- Veere had said Sherlock set a record. Sherlock hadn't cared about the money, he figured Sherlock would have turned it over to Mycroft, Sherlock was terrible with money, didn't care a fig about it as long as the heat in the flat stayed on and there was enough for coats and cabs and Chinese food after cases.

Either he was going to collapse in a mess with grief, or he could turn the video back on and watch what happened next.

* * *

 _"Three,"_ Sherlock counted, magnificently insolent. John noticed that this time, his voice caught in his throat just a tiny bit as the third blow rocked him.

His cock, lengthening but not hardening, danced against his thigh, and John didn't even pretend he wasn't watching it, wishing he could touch.

He heard the voice of the woman holding the mobile and filming Sherlock's performance.

 _"Can you see him clearly, sir?"_ The woman asked quietly.

The reply was not audible in the video, but she replied, _"Yes, sir. Steel in him. If that's what you want."_

Sherlock stood impassively, his eyes lowered now, dark lashes against white skin, but John didn't think it made him look respectful or submissive, or whatever it was that these people wanted from him.

The woman said, _"Five -fifty,"_ and the video went dark.

He fumbled with clumsy fingers at the touch screen. There were other video files here. He could watch, if he wanted to. He thought about that.

He was overwhelmed with conflicting feelings: the sheer unreality of seeing Sherlock again, alive and moving and speaking, even in this other world; the underlying grief of knowing that no matter how real and beautiful he looked here, Sherlock was still dead and gone and his body was nothing like this anymore, a year in the grave.

He remembered the story about the box that the gods warned Pandora never to open, but which she opened anyway, unleashing all the evil in the world. Leaving in the very bottom a single spirit, Hope.

But there wasn't any hope for him. He knew that. All he had was guilt, a broken heart and the pressure and heat in his groin that was making him feel both ill and alive.

He stood up and went back to the closet. There was a black riding crop on the shelf, not the one from the morgue, this was something that Sherlock had brought home to 221b one night, and he had left it laying about the flat for a week or more -- conspicuously? -- before it had disappeared. John hadn't seen it again until he found it in the closet among Sherlock's belongings after his death.

With a shiver of revelation, he knew that Sherlock had been trying to tell him something, and he had been too blind to see it. He took the crop down and closed his hand around it; it felt heavier than it looked.

He examined it closely. To all appearances, as well as he could determine having been trained in observation by the world's greatest consulting detective, this crop had never been used.

With his free hand, he unzipped his trousers and pushed his pants down. His skin felt aflame with an illicit flush. He was about to do something very wrong, forbidden, beyond the pale. He touched the mobile screen again and the video started over.

* * *

_"Count for mistress, Number Twenty-Five."_

When the first blow came, John experimentally brought the crop down hard to slap against the side of the mattress in time with Sherlock's voice. The sound of the crop hitting the bed wasn't as satisfying as the sound he imagined it would make against bare skin, but that was all right. He was making Sherlock count for him. He relished the feel of resistance as the crop hit the bed and the little shockwave jolted his arm as his other hand stroked his cock, full and tight and weeping.

It had been weeks since he'd come, feelings in his belly and his cock had seemed oddly distant, like his nerves were wrapped in cotton wool, his orgasm a mere ripple, barely worth bothering about. But not here, not now. When the second blow came, he brought the crop down again harder this time. He watched Sherlock's face, surreal and glowing against the wall. His balls drew up, the heat was spreading, sparkling and burning through his veins like a lit fuse straight to his whisky-addled brain, but it wasn't the whisky that made it feel like he was going to detonate.

When Sherlock counted three, he struck the crop against the wall, exactly where Sherlock's hips danced in time to the blow, and came hard and fast with a shout that he was sure could be heard through the walls as he pumped all over his own hand and belly, contractions that went on and on until he folded on himself and slumped against the bed. He didn't care.

He pushed pause before the woman could speak again and ruin everything. Sherlock stared down at him, insolent, knowing, lost.

"It's going to be okay. I've got you now," John whispered.


	4. Chapter Four: Matters of Business

 

 

 

 

John’s eyes finally closed against the images of Sherlock from the mobile. But his body resisted sleep, twitching and seizing with an occasional start that jerked him back fully awake, heart pounding, sweat-slicked against crumpled sheets.

A strange alarm vaulted him up before dawn, and the first thing he saw when his eyes flew open was the black leather of the crop gleaming dully in a dim square of light from under the door.

He fumbled with fingers that seemed clumsier than they should until they closed around the mobile. He turned off the alarm and let the heft of the mobile rest in his palm. He looked at his hand, his fingers curled around the mobile, and knew where his first interview in the case of the missing Jason Kilbraith would be.

He stumbled to his closet and examined his wardrobe, such as it was. For the first time since Sherlock’s funeral, he found himself caring what he would wear for the occasion. He considered his options.

He was floundered for a few minutes, at a loss as he inspected his checked shirts, serviceable khakis and plain tees. Finally he located his single pair of black jeans and a black dress shirt-- a gift from a former girlfriend (he was mildly embarrassed even now that he could not recall her name). Over this he pulled his black shooting jacket with the leather patches, his mouth twisting an involuntary grimace, almost a smile. He hadn’t worn it since the last day, but hadn’t been able to part with it. Too many associations. Anyway, it seemed fitting that he should finally wear it again today. Now that part of Sherlock had come back to him, even a part he hadn’t known.

 _I will know,_ he thought, examining himself in the mirror. He wondered if what little he did know from his glimpses into that illicit world on the mobile showed in his face.

For what he planned to do now, he hoped so.

A new black leather duffle into which he carefully stored the crop and the mobile completed his costume, which is what he considered it. He felt a little like a fraud and hoped he didn’t look like a poser as he went out into Baker Street and hailed a cab.

“Where to?”

He could readily picture the pristine white columns, crisply painted address numbers in stark black. Other images, much less pristine, he declined to dwell upon. Somewhere a faint echo of tragic, romantic violin music threatened to break through, but John clenched his fist, and the music receded.

“Belgravia. Eaton Square. Number 44.”

* * *

John pressed the buzzer, knowing from experience that he was certainly being watched. He squared his shoulders, soldier-style, and planted his feet firmly when he caught himself shifting back and forth on the step as he waited.

 _Oscillation on the pavement always means a love affair,_ Sherlock drawled.

This memory was drowned out by the sharp, confident clatter of expensive women’s high heels on the marble floor on the other side.

“Good afternoon, Doctor Watson,” the ivory-skinned beauty said, lips painted the very shade of red he remembered.

“I’m afraid you’ve the advantage of me,” John said. “Never did catch your name.”

“You may call me Kate. Do come in.”

He followed Kate across the cool marble hall into the reception room, furnished in brocade, gilt, and crystal, just as he remembered.

Kate invited him to sit and poured him a whisky.

“Bit early, luv,” he said.

“You don’t quite look like you’re in the mood for tea,” Kate said archly. “I thought, something stronger.”

He looked into the glass at the amber liquid. “The last time I was here, your, ah--"

“--Mistress,” Kate supplied helpfully.

“-- Miss Adler, she drugged Sherlock Holmes. I’m not sure I should be drinking whatever it is you’re pouring.”

She pouted a little, then took the glass from his hand and took a long drink.

“There. It’s perfectly safe. I don’t have any reason to drug you now, Doctor Watson. Unless you want me to, of course. Some men have a desire to be overtaken, and --”

“-- Yes, yes. That’s not why I’m here. I mean, I’m not here for me, Kate.”

Kate dropped the sultry pout and to his surprise, gave him a look full of sharp understanding.

“Miss Adler once told me that you and she were in the same boat. Now, it’s you and me in the same boat. Isn’t that funny?”

John took a long swallow of the whisky, letting it roll over his tongue and burn down his throat before answering.

“Okay. I’ll bite. How do you reckon?”

“Well, Sherlock Holmes is dead. So is my mistress. Both of them liked their games more than they cared for people. Even people who cared too much. And look where it got them. And now you’re here, but not for you. So you say.”

“And now I’m here. Since you’re still here, I figure you’re still in business.”

The arch smile returned. John was tempted to put down the whisky and leave. This felt wrong. But the alternative, searching the internet, some kind of sordid transaction. . . here, at least, he felt some connection with his former self, his former life with Sherlock, painful though the associations were.

“I’m not sure we are thinking of the same thing, Doctor Watson. Would you be so kind as to state your business?”

In lieu of a response, he leaned down, unzipped the black leather duffle, and withdrew the crop.

“This kind of business,” John said.

* * *

Kate’s eyes widened, and then were cast modestly down.

“I see. I hadn’t realised.” She opened a drawer and withdrew a tablet. “If you would do me the honour to enter your details, I’ll undertake to meet your. . . requirements.”

A quick glance at the tablet made him almost lose his nerve. The late Irene Adler still stared coolly out at him. She could almost be a twin, John thought with a thrill of recognition, to Sherlock, looking haughtily over the avid crowd on the mobile. Somewhere the ephemeral violin music echoed in the back of his mind.

He shook his head.

_“The Whip Hand. Know When You Are Beaten.”_

He swallowed hard. Kate was watching him from under lowered lashes, calculating, assessing, he felt. No doubt finding him in some sense -- probably in every sense -- wanting. A spike of temper flared.

This woman had no idea what he was capable of. What he had seen, and done, before ending up in this particular place in time.

“My requirements? No, it’s not -- like I said, I’m not really here for me. I’m hoping that even with Miss Adler. . . ah, gone, well, that you can help me.”

“Help you? I thought you were a man that had friends in high places. Scotland Yard, the government. . . maybe even higher than that. You’ve got certain connections, even now, I should think. Certain valuable connections. So why come to me for help? What is it that you want, Doctor Watson?”

John just looked at her. Was she really so obtuse? She was looking just a bit smug and he decided that she wanted to hear the words.

* * *

This had always been a problem for him, especially with women. Words. Sherlock hadn’t needed them from John. Certainly he didn’t ask for them during the times -- often -- when John was quiet. Sherlock understood his silences as well, or better, than he understood his words. Well, apparently not all his silences. But John hadn’t understood them either, then.

The truth was that the silences in the flat were every bit as much down to him as they had ever been to Sherlock. He had learned this very well once Sherlock was gone.

But here, he was being asked to be explicitly clear about what he wanted. He wasn’t really sure when the last time was that he had done that. Probably, he thought, at Sherlock’s grave. The words stuck in his throat.

But Kate was schooled in patience, and she waited in the quiet. Unnatural quiet, John thought as he hesitated on the brink. You couldn’t hear London noises in here. Soundproof glazing, he figured. Behind these panelled doors and damask draperies you were in another world altogether.

“I want to learn. . . to use this.” He held up the crop and struck it firmly against his own palm. It made a satisfying smack and the sharp burn made him clench his jaw, not against the pain but because this was the kind of feeling Sherlock had sought. And he never knew it. “Properly, I mean. And anything, everything else.”

Kate’s eyes widened momentarily but she didn’t seem at all skeptical. She eyed him appraisingly but respectfully, he thought. He had been fully prepared to leave otherwise.

“Oh, Doctor Watson,” she whispered, “How she would have loved this.”

He was starting to have regrets about having come to the late Irene Adler’s flat for this particular mission. Her ghost was everywhere. Even this transaction, which was what he considered it, was framed according to what Irene would have enjoyed.

More games. Still, the alternative repelled him.

Kate seemed to be waiting for him to say something more. He stood before her, crop clenched in his fist.

He remembered Edwin Veere, offering him the precious mobile last night, his own demand to keep it. “Of course, sir,” Veere had said passively, obediently.

“Let’s start by dropping the ‘Doctor Watson.’ You may call me Sir.”

* * *

_Two weeks later_

In a Georgian block in the shadow of St. Paul’s, John rang the buzzer of a freshly painted black door in Amen Court.

He held up an engraved white card for inspection by the webcam. A discreet buzz and electronic click, and John pushed open the door to a small, softly lit space, deep plush carpet, lined with row after row of what looked to be antique mahogany display cases like those at the Natural History Museum. His mouth twitched at the corner. He still couldn’t decide if this journey was deeply unnatural, or the most natural thing he had ever done.

He gave the little card to the clerk, who with gloved hands admiringly laid out several bespoke leather items on a velvet tray.

“Your order, sir. I hope everything is just as you like. If I may say so without being forward, you have made excellent choices, sir.”

John touched the items in turn, giving special attention to buckles, snaps, and the weight of each item. He gave a brief nod in acknowledgment.

“We hope they will give you every satisfaction,” the clerk pursued, just a touch presumptuous, John thought. In this establishment, he could not allow it to go unremarked. John looked up, frowning a little.

“My satisfaction is no one’s business but my own,” he said evenly, but with a bite behind it that was unmistakeable. The clerk was about to sink to his knees, but another man appeared behind him and with a gesture, dismissed him.

“I apologise on behalf of the house, sir. That was over-familiar, but no offence was meant. You are of course free to correct him as you like. He is eager to learn, and too eager, perhaps, to please.”

John considered. This new world seemed to demand tests, proofs, at every turn, and while he figured that they knew he was a novice, he didn’t want to make a public show of it.

“I’m rather busy. If you could just wrap these for me.”

He watched as the gleaming black leather was efficiently wrapped in unremarkable brown paper.

“Have you seen Jason Kilbraith lately?”

The man turned his back to John, measuring out thin black ribbon and snipping it with a pair of long, very sharp-looking scissors.

“Our clients prize their privacy, sir, as I’m sure you can appreciate.”

The man bent to wrap the parcels with the black ribbon, only to find a hundred pound note tucked into the folds of the paper.

“Jason and I have a mutual acquaintance. We would both be grateful for any assistance you can give in contacting Jason.” John hoped that it would be thought that he was referring to Guy Clement, whose name he understood from Kate was whispered only in the most private and rarified of circles.

“One moment, sir.” The man withdrew, leaving John alone with the rows of displays lit like jewel cases. Padded cuffs, paddles of different lengths and weights, crops and whips of a surprising variety -- John knew now that Sherlock’s crop was an exceptionally fine example, undoubtedly made in this very shop to Sherlock’s own specifications for length, flexibility, and weight in the handle.

* * *

He examined the order for his own items, written out in beautiful script by someone’s elegant hand. Was there a paper filed somewhere behind these cases memorialising Sherlock’s order? What has been in Sherlock’s mind when he had it made?

He remembered when it first appeared in the flat -- it was after Irene’s death, to be sure. Had she had an influence there? Impossible to imagine that she hadn’t. That way lie madness, though, and so he pushed the thought away, for the thousandth time envying Sherlock’s mind palace, where any troublesome thoughts could be banished to any of hundreds, maybe even thousands of locked rooms. He didn’t have that trick.

He had only something that he imagined was like a dark well that he could push unwanted thoughts and memories down. But they were hard to keep down.

“Sir?” The man was back, proffering a white card with writing on the back. He didn’t want to examine it here, didn’t want to look too interested, and so he took it and put it in his duffle with the parcel of his new equipment.

“Thank you.”

“Always honoured to oblige a friend of Mr. Clement,” the man said as he buzzed John out into the suddenly too-bright afternoon sun. His heart was beating fast.

The game was on.


	5. Chapter Five: Crossing Boundaries

 

 

 

 

Meeting with Mycroft was never easy, never pleasant.  He usually wondered how it was that Mycroft was still living and breathing and Sherlock Holmes was dead and gone.

But John was just curious enough about how much Mycroft still knew about his life to answer the summons. He had the note in his pocket from the little private shop, a note that said "Guy Clement - Thingvellir, Iceland."

They met in the usual room at Mycroft's club, the Stranger's Room, where Mycroft would not be in breach of the Diogenes' rules if he actually spoke aloud.

“And how is dear Kate? Enterprising woman. What do they say, keeping the flame alive? Touching that you can console one another in your grief--”

John stood up and began marching for the door.

“John, John. Stop. I only want to see that you are safe. I have nothing but the highest regard for you, you know. Sherlock would want --”

“Don’t speak his name. You’re always spying, everywhere. All the time. Why didn’t you stop him that day? Stop him going off that rooftop, hmmm?”

“I had no more idea than you that he intended to. . . well. And by the time I realised. . . “

John held up a commanding hand, and Mycroft shut his mouth.

“What do you know about Thingvellir?”

“That is where Guy Clement has an annual house party. To view the Northern Lights. And to pursue other things that I believe you have become well aware of, John. I don’t think you should get involved, you know. But I’ve brought you a new passport just the same.”

John gave a derisive snort. “What I choose to do with my life is no longer your concern. But since you seem to be so well informed, maybe you can help me with something.”

“Anything I can do, I will, John. What is it?”

John heaved a breath, felt the mobile turning in his fingers. He didn’t want Mycroft to be part of this, he wanted to keep it something private, something between him and the memory of Sherlock Holmes, preserved forever under glass.

But Mycroft already knew everything, and he had been naive to suppose he could ever keep anything about Sherlock a secret from Mycroft Holmes.

* * *

He slid the mobile across the table and pressed “play.” Soon the familiar sound of the slave auctioneer filled the little room through the tinny speaker.

“I have to know. Why did Sherlock do it? Sell himself to Guy Clement like this? Did you -- did you make him do it --- for some kind of case?”

He couldn’t keep the hope from his voice. He had been holding tight to this thought, that it was just another case, probably no more important to Sherlock than any other.

“I didn’t send him,” Mycroft said softly, turning off the video. “And Sherlock never spoke of his . . . time with Guy Clement.”

“Are you telling me you know nothing about this?”

“I’m telling you that my brother was very good at keeping secrets when he wanted to. Which was often. And even I wasn’t privy to them all, no matter what you may believe now, John. I certainly wish that I had been. It wasn’t for lack of trying, I assure you.”

Secrets. So many. Had they ever really known one another at all?

 _I know you’re for real_ , he had said to Sherlock, right before the end.

* * *

In his time learning the skill set of a dom, one of the first boundaries that had to be crossed was the fundamental one -- did he prefer a female or male sub?

In the beginning, with Kate’s assistance, he worked with books and videos in Irene’s impeccable collection. But it was impossible to move from the world of fantasy to the world of reality without a real partner.

He was very uncomfortable with the idea of hurting a woman, even within the confines of consensual D/s. On the other hand, he could not imagine desiring any man in this way. No man but one. It was painful and terrible to recognise that these strange newfound desires would never be fulfilled, except in his imagination. Sherlock was dead.

But a decision had to be made. Kate made it for him in the most tactful way possible, choosing several subs who were as unlike Sherlock Holmes as possible: a Bosnian, blond and muscular, with the compact physique of a boxer and the coarse, broken features to match; also an Italian swimmer, with olive skin and dark eyes.

He didn’t want this in any way to become excessive, or worse, an obsession. He had one obsession, and it was enough. He considered learning the skills of a dom to be something like learning a new skill set as a doctor. And he found that his doctor’s instincts, and especially his hands, enabled him to work with his sub’s pain and pleasure responses with a precision that was something like the near-prescience that Sherlock had when solving cases. John almost always could predict what a sub craved, what was too much, what wasn’t enough. He made it a practice to leave them wanting much more than he gave.

He had made a decision almost immediately after the first session that he would refuse any release for himself. That he could take care of in private, alone in his own flat. With the mobile.

That wasn't what this was about.

He had found more videos on the mobile. He hadn’t watched them all yet, he was drawing it out.

He had a sense that when he got to the end of the videos he would somehow lose his final connection with Sherlock, and things would slip away, go back to the way they had been before.

* * *

The second video was of Sherlock in an elegantly furnished room, one John imagined he may have admired, with modern art, glass, and leather furniture. It was nighttime, wherever the flat was, and Sherlock’s silhouette was outlined against a window, really a glass wall.

Beyond Sherlock, city lights glimmered. It didn’t seem to be London but this high up, John couldn’t tell for sure.

“I don’t understand you, Sherlock,” a man off camera was saying. His voice was very cold.

“It was clearly delineated in the paperwork,” Sherlock said, his voice clear and equally cold. “Sir.”

The man approached Sherlock, momentarily blocking out the entire camera view. Then he could see the crop brushing along Sherlock’s shoulder blades.

“It pleases me to deny my sub release, sometimes for days, weeks . . . sometimes, months. But this is different.”

“This is different,” Sherlock agreed. “And again, sir. Very clearly set forth in my papers.”

“You’re pure masochist, then.”

“I don’t know about ‘pure.’ Sir.”

“Do not attempt to be mysterious, Sherlock. Your papers cover the standard categories. And while I like a bit of mystery, it will be on my terms. Always my terms. Kneel.”

Sherlock knelt gracefully as the man’s hand firmly pressed him down so that he remained facing him, John’s view of Sherlock half blocked by the body of the man John now knew to call his dom.

Guy Clement.

Clement reached off camera and then a crop was in his hand. He struck half a dozen hard, fast blows across the front of Sherlock’s thighs, apparently careful not to touch his cock. It had to hurt, had to burn like hell, but Sherlock merely sucked in his breath, a tiny sound, and absorbed the blows.

Clement turned a little, and John realised that of course, he knew the mobile was recording. He wanted these images. His cock was already hard and cold drops of perspiration sprang up on John’s forehead, dreading what would come next. He had stopped the video more than a dozen times before finally letting it go.

“Open your mouth, Sherlock, and suck me. Slowly, mind you.”

Sherlock looked up with a flash of what John could swear was gloating, and that was when he knew Clement’s eyes must already be closed because otherwise, he would have whipped Sherlock severely. But Sherlock opened his mouth and took his cock inside, and then his view was blocked again. But the leisurely, proprietary fast-slow-fast thrust of Clement’s hips and the wet choking noises coming from Sherlock’s throat gave John a vivid picture of what was happening. His own cock, of course, had long since risen up hard and red, wanting the impossible. He only gave himself a few strokes, because he knew what was coming.

* * *

Clement was on the edge, murmuring insulting endearments about what a good sub Sherlock was going to be. But just when John was sure he would climax down Sherlock’s throat, steeling himself to hear Sherlock swallow, Clement stopped and pulled out.

Sherlock gasped in a lungful of air and waited, still, panting quietly.

“It would be detrimental to our relationship, Sherlock, if I were to lose myself-- when your rules strictly prohibit you any form of release. It would put things out of balance. And I never allow that to happen. And so, unless you choose to withdraw your restrictions, during our time together you are forbidden to make me come. I assure you this won’t be a problem, Sherlock. I’m well beyond the point of letting my body rule my mind.”

“I feel similarly, sir,” Sherlock said without a hint of sarcasm. “And I want to ensure I remain that way.”

“And I want to provide you with what you want, Sherlock. And also, what you need, which may turn out to be something very different. I’m sure you understand this, Sherlock, you are exceptionally intelligent.”

Sherlock bowed his head but said nothing in response to Clement’s praise. John’s jaw was tense from clenching. He had tried watching with the sound off a few times, because he could not bear the sound of Clement’s voice. But neither could he resist hearing Sherlock’s voice.

* * *

He played this segment over and over, his frustrated cock spilling over in just moments, to his thrilling shame, at the gorgeous wet sounds that came from Sherlock’s mouth as sucked Clement’s cock. This was no good, he had to be as restrained as Clement. As restrained as Sherlock.

And so he listened and watched, and slid his fist over his cock in time with the rhythm Clement set. But John stopped himself before he came, a new sort of frustration. He prided himself on his stamina but had never really had a taste for delayed gratification.

The first few times he stopped short his entire body shivered and jerked, desperate for release, his balls hot and heavy.

He closed his eyes against the image of Sherlock to make it a little easier. Then he decided that was a sort of cheating. To hold back even while watching every move Sherlock made, that was real control.

And finally, he found he could do it.

Later in the video, Clement called another sub in to finish him off, making Sherlock watch, which he did with the cool, bored detachment with which John was so familiar. John stroked himself harder, watching Sherlock’s pale, elegant face, devoid of any sign of temptation or desire, and felt a sort of triumph when he was able to stop himself from spilling over the edge. He wasn’t going to be any less disciplined than Guy Clement.

Or Sherlock Holmes.

* * *

Mycroft’s other meeting was, in fact, in Baker Street, but not in 221b. He waited quietly in the empty flat that had a direct view across to his brother’s former sanctum. John had stayed in 221b after the funeral, loyal and devastated, until he could’t take it anymore. He hadn’t been back in months.

That made this little venue that much more fitting. If things went according to plan, he didn’t imagine John would ever return to 221b Baker Street.

There was a light footfall on the stair. He opened the door before she could knock. Always better to let them know they couldn’t creep up on one.

Wide, cold blue eyes looked into his with deep suspicion, and underneath that, admirably controlled fear. She was wearing one of those thin cotton nurse’s uniforms, sensible shoes, and if he wasn’t very much mistaken, a Glock pistol in a band at her thigh.

“Miss Morstan. May I call you Mary? Or is there another name you prefer? You have such an interesting variety of options.”

She scowled blackly at him, fingers inching toward the gun.

“My dear, do you imagine that I don’t have you covered from every possible angle?”

Mary looked out the window and down into Baker Street, scanned the rooftops.

“Your talents are well known to me. And to others who have reason to be interested in the state of your career.”

Mary pursed her lips, clearly furious but far too clever to let it get the better of her.

“What do you care about my nursing career?” She threw out, almost as a stalling tactic.

“You were a quick study, weren’t you? 1 year accelerated course in -- I have it here-- Guyana. You got your nursing certificate in six months. Remind me not to find myself in need of your care. I imagine it helps to have influence with the commissioner, of course.”

Mary didn’t crack a smile. “I’m a good nurse, you know. Lots of practical experience.”

“I’m so glad you brought that up, Mary. Practical experience. It’s just the reason I wanted to meet with you. Please sit.”

There were two rather grand leather wingback chairs that Mycroft had brought to the empty flat for the occasion, and they sat, Mary carefully waiting until Mycroft was fully seated while she anxiously eyed the windows.

“I let you have the chair with your back to the wall. Surely that reveals my good intentions toward you, Mary.”

“In my experience, no one has good intentions toward me. Ever,” she said.

“Be that as it may. Your luck may just have changed.”

“Not likely. Let’s get on with it,” Mary said with a short laugh. “I was on my way to my shift. I can’t miss it, I need the money.”

“How convenient that you bring up the very topic I wanted to touch on with you. Money.”

“What do you want?”

Mycroft smiled and handed her a photo from a folder. It was a man and a woman at a romantic restaurant.

Mary didn’t flinch.

“So? It’s not like he’s married. He’s practically my fiancé. Will be, anyway.”

“No, I’m afraid he won’t, Mary.”

* * *

The next morning John boarded an SAS flight to Reykjavik using the false passport provided by Mycroft, although he imagined that the number of persons in Iceland who would know the name John Watson, former sidekick to the disgraced suicide, Sherlock Holmes, was minute.

However, the one person who he intended to see would surely know the name, but he figured it wouldn’t really matter. If Guy Clement was interested enough to let John into his house, it might be because of his connection to Sherlock rather than in spite of it. He had an invitation to Guy Clement’s annual Northern Lights party, courtesy of Kate, who had been more resourceful than John would have predicted.

She had helped him pack for the trip, making sure he had everything that would be expected of him.

“Send me a postcard? I’ve always wanted to see the Northern Lights.”

Kate was wearing a simple white dress that reminded him of Irene Adler. He didn’t want to ask if it was actually Irene’s. He wondered what had become of Irene’s personal belongings after her death. It seemed somehow impossible that Irene should have had any close relatives. He had seldom met anyone so truly alone in the world.

“Can I ask you something?”

Kate looked up from the last of the packing. “Of course.”

“Did she ever talk about Sherlock? Or me?”

“Yes. She talked about you both. More Mr. Holmes, but you as well, sir.”

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell me what it was that she said. At this point, what difference can it make?”

Kate smiled. “It wasn’t anything so surprising. She just said. . . that it was no wonder she could get no joy of Mr. Holmes. Because of you.”

John coloured at this and took the bag. “Well,” he said, “I guess I felt the same way about Miss Adler.”

Kate put a cool hand on his arm. “I wish you wouldn’t go to Mr. Clement’s party, sir. He’s got a reputation. It could be. . .bad for you.”

John kissed Kate on the cheek. “I’ve dealt with much more dangerous men than Guy Clement. And I’m still here.”

As he rode in the cab to Heathrow, he considered whether, as Edwin Veere had suggested, Guy Clement was the reason that Sherlock wasn’t.


	6. Chapter Six: Thingvellir

 

 

 

The journey by charter plane gave John time to review the travel guide about Iceland.  Thingvellir was a World Heritage Site, and one of the world's prime viewing spots for the Northern Lights.  The lake there, Thingvallavatn, was the largest in Iceland, very deep and pure. One could scuba dive in the lake, he was surprised to learn.

He had bought the guide at his favourite bookshop, Daunt Books in the Marylebone High Street, which specialised in travel books.  The shop was just a few blocks from Baker Street.  On occasion he had been there with Sherlock, who didn't enjoy the books so much as their collection of maps.  In the age of Google Maps, Sherlock kept a fascination for old-fashioned paper maps, and possessed a large collection which he had kept in very bad order in a drawer in 221B. They were still there.  John had looked.

After learning from Mycroft that as a boy, Sherlock had wanted to be a pirate, John decided that Sherlock's preference for real paper maps was a vestige of childhood games--  treasure hunts, pirate maps.  Once these thoughts had made him smile a secret smile.   He had never told Sherlock that he knew that about him.  He had just possibly imagined a conversation where he could have brought it up -- but events overcame them, and he called Sherlock a machine, and then it was too late.   

He closed the book.  Thinking about Sherlock's childhood games made him think, inevitably, about other games, dangerous games.   Sherlock always let games go too far.  Games with Moriarty. 

Games with Guy Clement?     

* * *

John had been in cold places before. 

He had been sent to Catterick in North Yorkshire for training in winter, and had thought the bone-deep damp and freezing winds from the moors as cold could be imagined.  Until Afghanistan.   Afghanistan in winter, especially in the hills, was another kind of cold altogether.  People back in England didn't realise that the British troops weren't necessarily all deployed in the desert, or that the desert could be bitterly cold at night after the blazing sun set behind the mountains.

The high mountains of the north, the Hindu Kush, were covered with snow and glaciers.  He heard somewhere that the word "Kush" meant death, and he soon had good reason to believe it.

This cold was very different.  Thingvellir was in the Arctic Circle.  He was near the top of the world.   They had  been forced to land early because of a storm, and coming down the gangway the icy wind blasted him and nearly knocked him down.   He bared his teeth in a grimace and felt little ice crystals form around his lips.  It felt good to be assaulted by something so elemental, something that would force him to fight for his life if he wasn't careful.

But the battle was over too soon.  A black Range Rover pulled up and he was whisked away along incongruously smooth modern roads across black volcanic rubble and ice.  Snow and wind buffetted the vehicle, but the driver was more than capable, even mastering a fishtail over black ice with a minimum of disruption, so that John almost thought he had imagined it.  He wondered if Sherlock had taken this same road.

* * *

Clement's house on the edge of Thingvellir National Park was a modern, brutal concrete block. It was set on stilts, probably to keep it from being buried in snow and ice during the long Arctic winter.  Its many large windows glowed a warm yellow against the dark purple of the night sky and darker jagged outline of the surrounding mountains.  It reminded him of the glow of the men's tents at night in Afghanistan. 

He did not try to push away these sudden remembrances -- flashbacks, if he was honest -- of the war.  They felt right.  He felt the sharp edge that he used to feel before a firefight.  Or with Sherlock, when --

A studded steel door in the concrete was opened by a servant. 

"Doctor Richards,"  he said, using the name, John Richards, that Mycroft had put on his new false passport. 

The man was decorous.  A short bow, looking down.  A sub, then.  Nothing surprising there.  

 "Welcome to Thingvellir.  Allow me to take your cases, sir."

"Not this one," John said firmly when the servant attempted to take the black duffle.  It held his custom implements.  And in a zippered pocket, the precious mobile.

His room was as he had imagined it, only much bigger.  A room bigger than the first floor of 221b, with polished concrete floors, a high ceiling, and a pristine white bed facing a vast window framing the nighttime view of the mountains, which were tinged with a shifting greenish glow.   The Northern Lights.

"Mr. Clement asks you to join him for a drink.  I'll come for you in half an hour, if that is agreeable, sir."   

Although framed with deference, it was nevertheless clearly not a request that could be refused, even if he had wanted to.

"Very good."

The door closed and he was left alone in the cavernous space.   The trip should have made him want to sink into the bed and close his eyes for a bit, but instead his fingers twitched, and he knew what he would do in this brief interlude before meeting Guy Clement.   He unzipped the duffle and pulled out the mobile.  He was careful not to let the battery go down and it powered up immediately. 

There were four unwatched videos.  He would watch the next one.

* * *

Sherlock was kneeling with his back to the camera on a soft white carpet near a burning fireplace.  It looked like square concrete, like something that would be in a room in this house.  He could see only the lower legs of the other man, seated in a chair before Sherlock.  He was speaking, and Sherlock was listening.

"Do you realise, Sherlock, that I can always see you thinking, thinking, even when I require you to be silent.  I believe it is a form of disrespect.  Is that your intention?"

Sherlock shook his head in the negative.  Something in the set of his shoulders, the tossing of his curls, made John think that Sherlock meant the opposite. 

"You may speak."

"That is not my intention.  I respect. . .  your powers of observation."

"Flattery!"

"I never flatter."

Clement stood.  "That is a fault in a sub.  Everyone enjoys praise, even a dom.  Even I enjoy it, if it is well done.  But few know how to properly flatter their master."

"Flattery is false praise.  I know you would see through it if I tried. I do not wish to displease you."

"Do you not?  As much as to say you don't care if you please me, either."

There was a silence, and John held his breath, expecting the crop to come down across Sherlock's thighs, his shoulders.   

Instead, Clement's hand reached down and gripped Sherlock's chin, forcing his head back.  John pictured Clement looking into Sherlock's pale eyes, trying to read whatever was there in that moment.  They would be reflecting back the glow of the fire.  John tried to imagine it, too:  defiance? desire?

Or something unfathomable, like the many times he had caught Sherlock's gaze on him, something undefinable.  He suppressed his own arousal, that wasn't what this was about.  He just had to know what happened next.

( _You want to know if he let Clement fuck him.  You don't want to know if he let Clement fuck him_.)

Watching the videos on the mobile had made him certain of one thing.  Whatever Sherlock's true feelings about sex, he hadn't been a virgin in the strictest sense of the word when they took tea at Buckingham Palace and Mycroft had accused him of being "alarmed" by it.  Now he also wondered, had Sherlock known that Mycroft knew about his interlude with Guy Clement? Or had Mycroft not learned about it until later, as he had? 

And while he still was no closer to knowing why Sherlock had put himself under Guy Clement's power in this way, whether it was elaborate playacting for a case. . .  or something more personal and therefore ultimately far more mysterious, it had also showed him that Sherlock was without a doubt at least willing to engage in sexual acts with another man. 

Whether he actually wanted to was completely unclear from what he had seen thus far.

* * *

"Lie face down," Clement ordered, and Sherlock complied.  The fire flickered across his back, over his hair.  His chest rose and fell slowly, calmly.  He was prepared for whatever would happen next. 

Clement ran his hand slowly over Sherlock's back and out of view of the camera, presumably down to his arse, which was not visible from this angle.  But Sherlock's chest continued to rise and fall almost peacefully, and John could tell that Clement wasn't doing anything . . . particular with that unseen hand.  He pushed his own vivid imagining away.  It was too much, much too much, knowing the real Sherlock was six feet under, his skull smashed --

"If you can't see me, this will be easier for both of us.  Right now, I don't want to look into those eyes of yours," Clement said with a venomous bite in his tone.  "You know what I mean, don't you.  Later, they will look at me quite differently.  But for now,  I want you to tell me something about myself that you enjoy.  Anything at all."

"Your discipline," Sherlock said immediately.

"Ah.  I meant something more personal.  About my person, if you will."

Sherlock was silent.

"Is it that difficult?"

"You are strong.  You have taken care of your body.  Sir."

Clement actually laughed.  "You mean, for a man of my age.  I suppose I deserve that.  But I believe in taking a sub out of his comfort zone, and I see I've struck on one of yours.  I am making you uncomfortable with this request, am I not?  I want the truth."

"Yes."

"You must have done research about me, Sherlock, before allowing your contract to be bought.  I know you.  And this makes me very curious as to why you would do such a thing, if you did not believe the experience would be satisfactory to you.  Or have I somehow failed to live up to your expectations?  Has my reputation become too grandiose for me to live up to?"

"No. Sir."

"No, what, Sherlock?  Answer me clearly.  As I have had occasion to warn you before, I don't like mysteries, except ones of my own devising."

"The experience is satisfactory to me.  Sir."

Clement stood up. "How very disappointing." 

He fastened padded cuffs around Sherlock's wrists and ankles, then snapped them together.  Then he reached down and fixed a gag in Sherlock's mouth.  He fisted his hand in Sherlock's curls and yanked his head back.  Hard enough that a small groan escaped Sherlock's mouth through the gag.  John instinctively stood up, fists clenched.

The screen went black.

* * *

At first he thought Clement was blocking the camera.  His heart thudded against his ribs, waiting for him to move, to see Sherlock and whatever was going to happen now. 

But the video was over.  Whatever had happened next, perhaps Clement hadn't wanted it filmed. 

Or whoever had made the video had deleted it, for reasons of their own.

He wanted to play the video again, this time giving reign to his elaborate fantasy of crossing the room, uncuffing Sherlock, knocking Clement to the ground, punching him senseless against the cold concrete until he bled--

There was a polite rapping at the door.   He turned the mobile off and put it back in the zippered pocket of his duffle.  The servant was here.

"Are you ready to go down to Mr. Clement, Doctor Richards?"

"Never readier," John said with a tight smile.

 

to be continued. . .


	7. Chapter Seven:  Aurora Borealis

 

 

The room was like an aquarium, with walls of glass displaying the shifting panorama of the Northern Lights, neon-bright.  Under any other circumstances the sight would have taken John's breath away.  There were several other doms here with slaves in varying attitudes, from unobtrusive waiting to ostentatious display to diligent servicing of their master's cock.  The scene earned no more than a sweeping glance from John, similar to the wary evaluation he made when encountering potentially hostile civilians in Afghanistan.  He ignored the assessing glances in return. 

There was a curtained alcove at the far end of the room.   Light flickered behind the curtains but somehow he knew it wasn't the Northern Lights.  The servant gestured for John to enter.

Guy Clement was sitting on a long, low leather sofa watching video projected onto a screen with the sound turned low. Clement was fully clothed, but John took in his broad, solidly muscled frame, long legs, and thick arms across the back of the sofa. 

A slender blond sub wearing a collar, leather harness and nothing else sat at his feet.   As John crossed the room he noted the sub's glance flickering avidly from the screen to his master's face and back.  

It was Jason Kilbraith. 

But that wasn't what made John suck in a breath and stop short.  The image on the screen was, of course, Sherlock.

His back was to the camera, arms braced against the wall.

 Clement was whipping Sherlock with a crop. With extreme ferocity.

* * *

The whipping had been going on for some time.  There were vivid fresh bruises and angry red weals criss-crossing Sherlock's back, arse and thighs.  Too many to count, although John promised himself that he would count every single one when he had the chance.  Sherlock's hair was plastered to his head, and his skin glistened with sweat and a few smears of blood.

Clement was slowing down, drawing out the time between blows. 

John's vision became a black tunnel that narrowed to just him and the small sounds Sherlock made as the crop rocked him.  John counted five more blows before Sherlock's knees buckled for just an instant, earning a swift rebuke, and then he was upright again.

"Do you see, Jason. Watch, and learn.  That was a sub who knew how to bear his punishment properly.    Do you think you could do as much for me?"

"Give me the chance to try to prove it, Sir."

Clement looked away dismissively.  His sub looked down, cowed.  Clement turned off the video. Instantly the screen was filled a projection of the Northern Lights.

"And what do you think, Doctor Richards?"  Clement was pouring him a drink, looking him over without a hint of trying to be subtle or polite about it.  John felt as if he were being evaluated for sale, which in Clement's world apparently everything was.  He pretended to misunderstand Clement.

"I think your sub would do better to say he will do whatever pleases you, rather than asking for chances and proofs.  Presumptuous.  That's what I think."

Clement stood then, holding out his hand.  John firmly forbade his hand to twitch or clench, something that often wasn't in his control.  But he had gotten somewhat better at controlling certain bodily responses.  He was loathe to touch the hand that had been used on Sherlock, but he did it.  There was no macho hand-crushing on either side, but they both held on a bit longer than was civil and John did not waver from his steely gaze, emotionless and pitiless.   Not as dark as Moriarty's black pools, perhaps, but with that opaque quality that instantly put John on edge, or more on edge than he usually was. 

Clement pressed his lips in a thin smile.  The eerie shifting colours on the screen were mesmerising.  Not as mesmerising as Sherlock.

"Do you know what makes the colours of the Aurora Borealis, Doctor Richards?"

"No."

"Individual gaseous particles colliding.  Each gas has a different colour signature."

"It's very -- inspiring," John said.  There were other words he could have used, but those words were only for Sherlock, even now.  Brilliant.  Amazing.  Astounding.  Magnificent.  Extraordinary.

* * *

"I had a great deal of respect for Irene Adler," Clement said.  "She is very much missed.  We are all men here this year, but when Irene was with us, she could work her magic with even the most jaded old doms.  Kate recommended you, of course, and I'm inclined to trust her judgment although, she's no Irene.  Nobody could be."

John took a drink, let it burn and heat his veins.  He intended to get rather drunk tonight.  It was the only way he was going to get through it.

"No.  Nobody could be," he agreed.

"I'll be honest.  Even with Kate's recommendation, I was hesitant.  I know you're a novice and you don't have any slaves of your own.  Not that you aren't still young enough to have an outstanding career, if you want it."

"So-- why did you have me?  Not that I'm not, ah, grateful for the invitation."

"Because of your particular skills, Doctor.  Your medical skills.  I wonder if you'd be willing to put on a little demonstration for us.  I have a sub with impressive tolerance for. . .  that sort of thing.  We have the weekend if you'd prefer to unwind, sample the wares a bit.  My subs are at your disposal."

"Thank you.  That is very. . .  hospitable."

"Do you hear what Doctor Richards said, Jason?  The Doctor is right. Your answer was lacking in proper humility.   I shall let the Doctor correct you.  Doctor, Jason is yours for the evening.  Serve him well, Jason."

"Thank you, Sir.  Thank you, Doctor."  John frowned when Jason studied his face for longer than was appropriate.

"Eyes down," John said softly.  Jason complied.

Clement opened a cabinet on the wall.  Black leather, gleaming snaps and buckles.  After the video, he figured they both expected him to take the crop.  He would not do that if he could possibly avoid it.

Instead, he took down a long silver chain fixed with little screw clamps, and a ball gag.  He took his time fixing the clamps to a variety of sensitive areas of Jason's smooth, peach-toned skin, watching the flush rise up.  From what Edwin Veere had told him, Jason was far too experienced to cry out-- yet. 

Clement watched with a connoisseur's eye.

"Lovely flush.  Not as lovely as his could be, though," Clement gestured to the screen where Sherlock had been, obviously remembering.

John tightened the clamps.

* * *

"You told Jason you were punishing that sub.  What had he done?  I know I've got a lot to learn."

Clement laughed and threw him a pitying look.  "You think I was too hard on him.  Believe me, I was very forbearing.  He refused to answer a question."

"I see."

"No, I don't think you do.  When you own your own slaves, you will understand better.  I owned that slave.  His body was my property.  And so were his feelings, his thoughts.  All of it-- my property.  I was entitled to all of it."

"May I ask what the question was?"

"I ordered him to tell me. . ."  Clement stopped, lost in memory.  John prayed he didn't turn the video on again. 

He had already decided he wasn't leaving here without that video. 

"I asked him," Clement finally said, "why he chose pain."

The lump in his throat was threatening to strangle him.  He covered with another long swallow through and over the tightness.  His vision blurred.  Maybe had been drinking more than he thought.

 "He. . .  wouldn't answer?"

 "He refused to give me my property. His mind.  And so, he was punished.  Severely."

"I assume he, ah--" The glass was empty.  Jason poured him another, graceful despite the clamps.  "I assume he. . .  learnt his lesson?"

The plan to get drunk was working faster than expected.  Probably it was the altitude.   The  liquor was some sort of Scandanavian aquavit with an astringent herbal flavour, and it was hitting his veins like gasoline.  He was getting hot all over.  He flexed his fingers.

Clement turned away and pressed a button. The curtains drew back on silent tracks. 

He had to get out of here.  He was going to thrash Guy Clement right here, until he had paid back every stripe on Sherlock's slender back.

Now they had an unimpeded view of real Aurora Borealis, dancing sheets of green, blue, and flashes of an icy white.

  "You are lucky, Doctor.  The white light is the rarest."

* * *

"Whose office is that?" Mary asked the supervising nurse of the clinic. 

The patient flow was dull, dull, dull.  She would speak to Mycroft Holmes again about shifting their assignment to a hospital trauma unit when the time was right. 

Anyway, of course she knew whose office it was, a white coat with a name tag pinned to the front, "John Watson, M.D.", hung from a hook inside the door.  But it was important to get the staff at least talking to her.  It wouldn't be hard.  She knew people liked an office romance-- as long as neither party was married.  It gave them an interest in their narrow, pathetic lives.

People generally didn't like her.  Not at first.  But once she spent a bit of time with them, she was invariably able to bend them to her will.  If it was her will that they like her, then they would.  It usually wasn't worth the effort, though.

Let them hate me, so long as they fear me: that was her motto.  Or one of them.  She had heard it somewhere, perhaps on a television show.  (In fact, it was the motto of the infamously cruel and depraved Roman emperor Caligula:  _oderint dum metuant.)_

But when John Watson returned to work at the clinic (which Mycroft assured her would be within the next two weeks) it would be important for him to see her already settled into the life of the clinic, for him to see that she was well liked.  

So she would make the effort.

"That's Doctor Watson's office.  He's on vacation.  Poor thing.  I had thought he was maybe starting to do better, but then he came in last week  looking like he'd seen a ghost.  Asked for a week's leave.  You know, he used to work with that fake detective, the one that killed himself -- that big scandal at Scotland Yard."

"Hmmmm," Mary said in her best encouraging tone-- without actually saying anything.  They ended up going for drinks after work, just as she planned.

"This is fun," Mary lied.  "I never get out, all ever I do is work, work, work." (This was actually true.) "Do you ever do office drinks, Friday night after work?"

"Hardly ever.  It's been an age.  Doctor Watson isn't much for socializing--  and the other doctors have wives and kiddies at home.  But life is short, hey?!  I tell you what -- I'll throw something together after Doctor Watson comes back.  I have a hunch he'll be glad to meet you, Mary."  The silly woman actually simpered and patted her forearm.

"Hmmmm,"  Mary said.  "Great idea."

* * *

John ordered Jason to accompany him to his room and prepare him for bed.  It was the only way he could get Jason alone tonight.  However, had taken a very simple precaution of writing out a note for Jason in case they were never in a position to speak alone.

But his eyes were suddenly much too heavy and the room was spinning.  He was only able to say, "The fuck, what, Jason--"  before he sank down. 

Jason caught him before he hit the floor and put him in bed.  His skin still burned, raw from the clamps.  He hadn't expected the Doctor to tear them off.  It was a technique that required a steady hand, and was not for beginners.  But the Doctor had known exactly how to pull, fast at first but not as fast as he had anticipated,  then just that little bit slower, intensifying the pain tenfold and prolonging the suspense into cruelty.  There was a sort of restrained bravura about the performance that impressed the Master, he could tell. 

And the crowd had praised the Doctor.  Everyone had inspected his red and pink marks approvingly.  The Master let everyone pinch and lick him, which would have made him proud if the Master had been watching to see how beautiful he looked like this. 

But the Master didn't watch.  Neither did the Doctor,  either to praise or scold him.   He did formally thank Clement for the use of him, at least.   

He removed John's clothing and tucked him under the luxurious feather comforter with careful respect.  Then he made a show of tidying the room.  He knew he was always watched.  What perhaps the Master didn't appreciate was that he had easily figured out how to hack into the house's security system. 

Jason was, after all, a software engineer--  and the system was only adequate, as this was a very remote place and Clement hadn't thought to need anything more sophisticated here.

And so, he had looked at the video feed from the Doctor's room from earlier today and had seen  something that shocked and frightened him. 

* * *

He put the Doctor's clothing into a basket to take away, and laid out a fresh robe for him for morning.  He filled the water carafe and left it at the bedside.  The little sleeping powder he had poured in his drink would be making the Doctor very thirsty.

He was almost out of time.  He knew if he started opening the Doctor's luggage he would be noticed, if anyone was watching the feed right now, and he couldn't afford that. He hadn't dared tamper with the feed, Clement was a voyeur and would definitely be watching his interesting new guest.

 There was a single suitcase and a black leather duffle.   Only the duffle was of interest, because of what he had seen earlier.  He could plausibly open the duffle to retrieve the Doctor's hairbrush and toothbrush to lay out in the bathroom, and so he felt around quickly inside the duffle, and found the hard outline of a mobile in the side pocket together with a folded piece of paper. 

He withdrew the Doctor's hairbrush and toothbrush and a small shaving kit and laid them out quietly in the bathroom, making sure everything was in order.  He concealed the mobile and the paper under his arm, which he covered with a discarded towel that the Doctor had used earlier to freshen up.  Nothing suspicious, then, about him taking it out of the room.

He closed the door, not before hearing Doctor Watson begin to mutter in his sleep. 

Even though the man was drugged, the word was fairly clear: "Sherlock."

* * *

In his own room, Jason went to the toilet and quickly unfolded the note. _" Are you safe? Edwin Veere is worried.  If you want to leave, I will take you back to London."_

Doctor John Watson, that was what the Doctor's real name was, he knew that now.  He had seen pictures of John Watson in the papers when he was studying Sherlock Holmes. The sub that everyone said defied Guy Clement, terminated his contract, and left Clement still obsessed. Or as obsessed as Guy Clement was capable of being.

 He wouldn't have necessarily recognised John Watson now, though, because he looked different.  It was difficult to evaluate the difference from his old pictures.   Thinner, perhaps.  Harder-looking, with a hunted, haunted look.  In pictures in the papers, John Watson had always glowed somehow with an inner light, beaming at Sherlock Holmes with pride, or looking into the camera with a proprietary hand on Sherlock's shoulder and a soft, smug smile on his handsome face.    

But when he saw and heard the Doctor watching videos of Sherlock Holmes on the mobile, videos that he personally had acquired (well, stolen, technically) from Clement's assistant Laura Pond, it all fell into place.  This man was Doctor Watson, the grieving comrade of Sherlock Holmes.  Since he had the mobile in his possession, there was only one person who could have sent him -- Edwin Veere.  His heart felt squeezed, a sharp pain that was real.  This is what heartache was, he supposed.  Veere thought he was in love with him and maybe he had once thought he felt the same. 

But he was beyond such simple, naive concepts as "love" now.   Guy Clement didn't want love, didn't allow it, even if it was offered.

He burned with shame remembering his failure tonight, when the Master asked if he could endure a whipping as well as Sherlock Holmes.  The truth was that Clement watched his collection of videos of his former sub constantly, as though trying to work out a puzzle. 

He needed to delete that video immediately, so that the Master would not have anything left except him.

Still, watching the videos was instructive.  He wanted to be what the Master wanted him to be.  He was very much afraid that what the Master wanted-- just like the Doctor-- was Sherlock Holmes.  Which was both terrible and unfair, because he was dead.  It felt terrible to be wanted less than a dead man. 

He swallowed his anger.  Then he climbed into his bed and pulled the covers over his head.  Under the covers, he turned on the mobile and put in earbuds in case anyone was listening, then downloaded the videos onto his own mobile.  Then he played the last video. 

* * *

The last video was different from the others, but it was the one the Master watched the most, in his private quarters.  He had never shared this video with anyone else.

He shivered to imagine how he would be punished if the Master knew he had stolen these videos.

The  camera captured him from above.  Sherlock was alone in his room.  (This was the very same room that he was in now.)  He was laying on the bed, his back to the door. The welts on his back had settled into mottled criss-crossing of bruises and red stripes.  Just a shade away from what would be considered an acceptable level of damage.  There were a few small dark spots that he knew were where blood had been drawn.  The Master had never struck him that hard. 

Even now, he didn't really understand what Sherlock Holmes had done to make the Master punish him so severely.  The Master clearly hadn't stopped thinking about it. 

Sherlock's shoulders and back began to shudder and Jason was almost convinced that he was sobbing, but the camera was not close enough to tell and if he was, he was doing so as silently as he generally was in the videos.

The shuddering stopped.

_"I know that you're listening.  Sir."_

Sherlock didn't turn onto his back.  That would be far too painful.  But he twisted his slender neck until his pale eyes (were they reddened? perhaps) were staring directly up into the hidden camera in the ceiling.

_"Here's the answer to your question:  I choose it, because I need it.  Mind over matter.  In my case, my **particular** mind is --  you can't understand.  With respect, Sir.  No one does.  Let's just say, I'm a freak."_

Jason believed it.  If what they said about Sherlock Holmes after his death was true, he had been a very sick man. 

(Maybe even as sick as he was.) 

Sherlock seemed to be looking back at him intently, as though he knew Jason was watching him. That was impossible--   this video had been taken more than three years ago, and Sherlock Holmes was dead. In one of the videos, the Master spoke about not liking the way Sherlock had looked at him, and Jason could understand why.

 The prickling of his flesh was doubly painful from the Doctor's tearing of the clamps.   

 Now Sherlock deliberately rolled onto his wounded back with a grimace.

_"And. . .  I deserve this."_

Sherlock Holmes's face suddenly clenched.  Jason was good at reading faces, but the expression was gone almost before he could decide for sure what it was. 

He had played this video before, though, and had decided that it was loneliness.

 


	8. Chapter Eight: Amsterdam

 

 

Chapter Eight: Amsterdam

 

John woke, woozy and cold, and scrambled upright. It was pitch dark and for a moment he had no idea at all where he was. But the feel of expensive sheets brought him back. He was still at Guy Clement's house in Thingvellir.

He groped for the light switch and knocked over something on the bedside table. Shattering glass pierced his foggy brain. He found the switch and then everything was far too bright: the crumpled bed, the glass shards glittering on the stone floor.   His head pounded unpleasantly. He hadn't drunk that much, he was sure of that. And while he was all too familiar with hangovers since Sherlock's passing, this felt different.

He rolled to the other side of the bed so he wouldn't cut his feet. Standing up felt like standing on the deck of a ship in a storm. His stomach lurched. The vertigo threatened to knock him back but he stood there determinedly, swaying and shaking, willing himself back under control.

With mechanical steps he marched to the bathroom and forced himself to look into the mirror. It was hard to focus. He looked ghastly. He lurched to the toilet and heaved, but nothing came up.

# # #

Ten minutes in the shower under ice-cold water restored his equilibrium. He didn't indulge in hot water. He needed to keep sharp.

Someone had drugged him. He needed to figure out who, and why. How would Sherlock go about it? He leaned against the marble vanity and looked at himself in the mirror again, trying to bring his brain back online, remember how Sherlock had tried to teach him to deduce.

Someone had drugged him to knock him out. It hadn't been some sort of sex drug, he was reasonably sure of that. He didn't feel sore anywhere. However, he was still disturbed by that persistent ache deep down, that he had been trying to ignore because he knew it was wrong. He was sick.

So-- who would want to knock him out? Whoever it was had obviously wanted him out of commission for a while. Why? To watch him sleep? Search his room? He checked his watch. He had been out for hours. So whoever it was had wanted, or needed, more than just a minute or two.

Not Clement himself, then.   Clement probably had had his room thoroughly searched as soon as he went down to the party last night, and could find any number of excuses to go through his things, with or without his knowledge. This was Clement's house, and he could and undoubtedly did whatever he pleased.

Whoever had searched his room hadn't had that freedom. So, it was either one of Clement's unobtrusive servants, or one of the other guests from last night's party.  But who?

Unlike the other doms here, he had arrived at Clement's house without a slave of his own. That marked him, he figured, as a man without particular wealth.   He had taken care with his appearance, and his few belongings for the trip were of as good a quality as he could manage -- but nothing that would attract notice. So, not theft. Which was unfortunate.

Because the alternative was that whoever had drugged him had wanted to search his things because they were interested in him personally. That meant that it was possible, maybe probable, that someone suspected who he really was. He remembered (it was never really out of his mind now, actually) that Sherlock had been bought by Clement at a private slave auction. Maybe some of the other guests had been there, had even bid against Clement for Sherlock. If they knew about Sherlock, maybe they followed his career after Clement.

Maybe that meant that they knew about John Watson.

Then again, he hazily recalled taking Jason up to his room last night. He thought he remembered climbing the stair with the sub, but nothing more.  He had meant to talk privately to Jason, make sure he was safe. He recalled the note that he had planned to pass to Jason if it seemed unsafe to talk.

# # #

His black duffle was sitting on a little bench against the wall exactly where he had left it. He opened it. Everything was just as he recalled leaving it. The mobile was still there in the pocket, together with the note. Didn't mean Jason hadn't looked through his things while he was out. He was tempted to turn on the mobile, but he didn't. He would start by going down, finding Jason, and trying to have a private word.

He drew the curtains. Jagged snow-capped mountains cut the twilight sky. There was a rumbling of motors and a convoy of black vehicles passed out the gate, down the road to the lake that shone like black oil in the distance.

His soldier's sense of imminent danger electrified his nerves and now he was wide awake. He had been left behind. He was alone in Clement's house.

He quickly dressed and padded down the stairs. The huge main room was immaculate and empty. There was no sign of the scene that had taken place last night. The vast windows that framed the Northern Lights last night now displayed dancing snow flurries. The house was silent.

Then muffled voices sounded from another room nearby.  Two voices: a frightened voice, an angry voice.

He went to Clement's cabinet on the wall and opened it, and found the implement he needed. Like all of Clement's tools, this one was handmade, of superb quality and weight. It was the weight that was important now. He took the spreader bar down and quietly unhooked the cuffs, leaving him holding a heavy steel rod.

He slipped a pair of black leather gloves over his hands and took an experimental swing.

Then he followed the voices.

# # #

"You haven't explained why you went into Doctor Richards' room this morning without my permission."

The door was slightly ajar. This looked like Clement's office. Guy Clement was standing over Jason. Jason was kneeling.

"I'm sorry, Sir. I only wanted to see if he--"

"Do not lie. You don't want to find out what will happen if you lie to me, Jason. You went into his luggage. Twice. You are not nearly as clever as you think you are. If you are so interested in Doctor Richards, perhaps I should sell you to him. Tell me why such a disobedient, thieving sub deserves to remain in my service."

"No, Sir! You would keep me if you knew what I had done to earn a place with you."

"More secrets. I don't tolerate secrecy, you know this. You are becoming boring, Jason, and this little attempt at drama won't restore you to favour. Tell me what you mean, or leave my house today."

"Your. . . other subs. The ones before me."

"What about them?"

"Everyone knows they . . . died. Sir. But they didn't really commit suicide."

"What -- how dare you? What are you saying?"

Clement struck Jason a hard slap across the face, but Jason kept on.

"It was a gift. My gift to you, sir. I killed them. All of them. To earn my place."

John swayed, struggled to stay upright, stilled his breath. Did Jason mean he had killed Sherlock? Somehow pushed him off that rooftop despite the incontrovertible evidence that he had jumped?

He could never be completely sure of his memories of Sherlock's fall. He had constant dreams of Sherlock falling, bright blood flowing through his dark curls on the pavement. But what happened before, Sherlock's words on the edge, those memories were somehow harder to focus on. He been knocked down as he ran to Sherlock's body, and he understood that the concussion made these last memories fragmented, like pieces of broken mirror that slipped through his hands just when he wanted to see clearly. Or maybe he really didn't want to see at all, his brain protecting him from the very worst images from the fall.

# # #

Clement was beating Jason hard with a crop.

"Liar! What do you know? Who sent you?"

Clement snapped cuffs onto Jason's wrists and dragged him toward the door.

John blocked his path.

"Why is Jason a liar, Clement? What really happened to your subs?"

Clement lunged, but John was faster and tackled him, and they both went down on the floor. Clement fought like a madman and John saw his eyes, killer's eyes. He still had hold of the spreader rod and started to strike Clement with it, but a heavy foot stopped him. John held back a groan. Jason, still handcuffed, kicked him viciously and now stood on his arm.

Clement rolled free and stood over him, his foot pinning his other arm, looking down at him gravely.

"Oh dear, Doctor Richards. I'm afraid there's quite a penalty in my house for eavesdropping."

"Sir -- he's not Doctor Richards. He was Sherlock Holmes's dom-- after you, Sir."

John couldn't bear this, even now. He knew how truly lost he was. He fixed them both with a look full of contempt mixed with self-loathing. "Shut up, you pathetic ---"

Clement clamped down harder on his arm. It felt like it might break.

"You were Sherlock's dom."

"No. I never was. I was never. . . anything."

"Hmm. That remains to be seen. Explain, Jason."

"That's why I was looking through his things, Sir. His name isn't Richards. It's Doctor John Watson."

Clement stared down at John for a long minute, then silently uncuffed Jason, who shot him a sidelong flickering glance. Warning? John followed the path of his eyes as Clement moved to haul him up. From his vantage point on the floor, he could see the outline of something dark and dully gleaming attached to the underside of Clement's desk.

Jason lightened the pressure on his arm but kept his foot in place.

"Help me take him below, Jason."

His hand now free, John gripped the bar tight in his gloved fist and swung it under the desk.

A Glock pistol hit the floor.

In Afghanistan, there would sometimes be a pure moment when your enemy, confronted with imminent danger, froze. If you were lucky. Everything depended on taking advantage of that fraction  of a second when everything seemed to pause while the bombs and bullets flew all around you.

Clement kicked at the Glock.

John's hand was faster.

# # #

Operatives would be at Thingvellir within three hours, Mycroft had assured him. Sooner, if John was in danger, Mycroft said. John assured Mycroft that he had the situation well in hand.  He suspected that Mycroft already knew that, but kept that thought to himself.

"Tell them to take their time, Mycroft," he said. "The roads are icy."

Clement was strapped to a saltire cross in his dungeon, several levels below the house. Clement's bare skin was ivory-pale and utterly unmarked, of course, as a dom's should be.

Jason was safely bound and blindfolded. He hadn't resisted John.

"Jason. What do you know about Sherlock Holmes's death? Did you. . . do anything to him? Were you there? Tell me now." John had the Glock in his gloved hand, and the cold barrel was pressed to Jason's temple.

Jason would have shaken his head if he hadn't had a gun to it. "I made it up. I swear. I thought it would make me . . . different than the others, better than the others. Can't you understand? He was getting bored with me, and I thought he would be impressed. He would let me stay."

John's mouth tightened in a thin smile. ( _Bored, Sherlock said languidly_.)

"Why did you help me?"

"The look in his eyes, when I said I killed them -- _he knew I was lying_.   And in that moment, I could see how he knew. But I needed him to think I was still trying to please him, so I told him who you were. I hoped he would uncuff me. If you hadn't come, he would have killed me, I think."

"You were very, very foolish, Jason. To tell him a story like that. Just to impress him."

_(I researched you. Before we met, I discovered everything that I could to impress you. It’s a trick. Just a magic trick.)_

_# # #_

John weighed Clement's crop in his hand. Not so good as one that Sherlock had bought, the one that he had replaced in its wrapping paper in a box at the back of Sherlock's closet in Baker Street. He hadn't wanted to bring it here. It would never touch anyone now.

He had gagged Clement. He scutinised Clement for several minutes, Clement's chest heaving, thighs trembling. How little composure he had, in the end. Soon, John would remove the gag, and Clement would tell him what he needed to know. But not yet.

The crop wasn't as fine as Sherlock's.   It would serve.

John started in with a doctor's precision to deliver a brutal but precise beating upon Clement's bare flesh.

When a drop of hot blood flew up into his face, he stopped, panting.

John's vision was clouded by images of Sherlock's thin, pale back, striped with red welts, and Clement's hand, droplets of blood flying from the tip of the crop.

He raised the crop again and brought it down with a vengeance.

# # #

"I'll understand if you can't help me."

John was sitting with Mycroft in an anonymous debriefing room in Reykjavik. Mycroft made sure John washed himself clean before leaving Clement's house and now he examined John with a critical eye. As usual, John was stoic, even fatalistic, sitting stone-faced and apparently quite ready to resign himself to a prison cell.

"I'll take what I have coming."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, John. Jason turned on Clement. Clement no doubt deserved it. It's rather serious, but he'll survive. Jason was on drugs, and didn't know how far it had gone.  They are rather forgiving of such things here, and I'll make sure they are in this case.  It was just a game. . . that went too far."

A game.  John sunk his head in his hands. Mycroft's lies would undoubtedly be effective where they needed to be.  But he couldn't lie to himself.  He was filled with horror and self-loathing. He reminded himself that games involving Sherlock Holmes always went too far, somehow.

Mycroft took him by the arm and propelled him down a long corridor, and then they were in the bracing Icelandic wind, climbing a gangway into a small jet. It was still dark when they landed in London.

He decided not to unpack his things. He specifically did not reach for the mobile. He shoved his bags into the back of his closet and closed the door firmly.  The videos of Sherlock bound and naked were not the real Sherlock. They were a form of dream, or nightmare. He wished he had never met Edwin Veere, although he tried hard not to begrudge his happiness when he learned that Jason was well, and that Mycroft was ensuring his safe return.   He knew how fragile a thing happiness was. His obsession with the videos of Sherlock had threatened to overtake his other memories, other dreams, the only happiness he really had left.

He didn't want to remember Sherlock like that.

He was degraded, debased. The Glock had felt so good in his hand. He wondered if Mycroft knew how close he had come to turning it on Clement. Maybe even turning it on himself.

And for the first time, he was actually glad Sherlock was dead, because he wouldn't want Sherlock to see him like this.

# # #

Amsterdam. 2:13 a.m.

In a dark, twisted alley not far from De Wallen, the most famous of the red light districts, Sherlock Holmes gave the password and a door opened. A modern elevator bore him up to a very private club at the top floor of this centuries-old building at the canal's edge.

Sherlock had bleached his hair white-blond and looked, he believed, Danish or Swedish. No one here would recognise him as the disgraced London detective. Anyway, Sherlock Holmes was dead.

He hadn't wanted to come here tonight. He had taken steps to avoid places like this, to achieve what he needed without having to pass through this particular door.

This was a BDSM club. It was not as exclusive as some he was far too familiar with, but still a very private and tight-knit group. It would be necessary to go through the proper motions, there was no getting around that.

He briefly considered whether he should just adopt the pose of a dom. He had done it before, and was good at it. But Sherlock had been disturbed by certain dreams lately, troublesome dreams of things he had never had, and never would have.

# # #

There was a reason that the crop was good for him.

If he was careful not to let his mind wander to parts of his mind palace that ought to be kept tightly locked, the crop gave him a focus for other kinds of pain, and displaced desire for the impossible.

As he knelt for inspection, Sherlock looked up from under his lashes and found what he had come here for. The Master was here. On a raised platform, he was painting the scene in oils. Soft lights were strategically placed for the best effect on writhing bodies.   Sherlock had seen The Master's work before. When it was finished, except for the unconventional subject matter, the painting would be indistinguishable in every detail from the work of the great Dutch Master, Vermeer.

As the crop came down Sherlock closed his eyes, willing the sting to drive away the memory of the Van Buren Supernova.

But despite his effort, he heard John's awed, relieved gasp as he solved Moriarty's puzzle with just one second to spare.


	9. Chapter Nine: Perpetual

 

John Watson looked dully at his stack of mail, then shoved it under yesterday's whisky-stained Guardian.

John's correspondence these days was nothing like the voluminous and exotic missives that used to arrive at 221B daily for Sherlock Holmes. Not to mention his emails, and messages on Sherlock's blog, The Science of Deduction.  

Even the most mundane circumstances pulled him back into the past. He saw a film once about a great whirlpool in the North Sea, and little things like the slim stack of bills and adverts made him feel as if he was being sucked down by that swirling maw, drowning imminent. He didn't put up much of a fight.

He went to pour another glass. The bottle was empty. He kept one stashed under the sofa, though, so he didn't have to slow down. He ignored the burning in his belly and knocked it back in one go.

He hadn't looked at Sherlock's blog for months.   But for a long while after the fall he had obsessively read Sherlock's entries over and over, searching for anything at all that might be a clue to the mystery of Sherlock's death. Which he now forced himself to think of by the awful word, "suicide." It hurt more, much more, than his dream that Sherlock had been pushed, and that he would somehow find out how, and by who, and do what needed to be done about it. As horrible as it was to imagine, he had actually prayed that Clement really was Sherlock's murderer. It was better, in the end, than accepting that Sherlock had killed himself.

# # #

Clement denied it to the very last, but John figured that Clement would surely not confess it to him if he had been Sherlock's killer. He had stopped before he crossed the thin line from a serious beating to actual torture, and now he couldn't decide if the constant twisting in his gut was guilt at how very easily he had turned into a monster, or bitter regret at not taking things as far as they needed to go to be certain of the truth.   And so, he had spent several sleepless nights waiting on word from Mycroft, who was overseeing Clement's extradition to London, where he had committed two of his three known murders.

But Mycroft seemed bent on disabusing him of his illusion without delay, sending a series of terse texts shortly after their return to London:

 _Clement guilty of murder in connection with 3 former_ _subs_

_No connection whatsoever to SH's death_

_Which to my eternal regret was in fact suicide_

_It would be best if you tried to move on, John._

 

Ella had told him something similar. Two visits to Sherlock's grave hadn't done it. He sighed. Without really thinking about it, he opened his laptop and opened the tab to Sherlock's blog.

_Are you not going to update here anymore?_

_I don't know. There doesn't seem to be much point in doing so._

There really wasn't much point in anything. He drank some more. A lot more. The muddled echoes of the rumble of a baritone laugh, melancholy violin music, and the smack of a crop striking bare flesh faded to a satisfactory buzz. The room was rotating slowly, slowly, like the shifting of the Northern Lights. He put his hand out on the table to avoid sliding off the sofa, and the stack of mail fell to the floor.

One of the envelopes was a rich shade of purple.

He picked it up, held it close to his face because it was hard to focus. The envelope was addressed to him in elegant, apparently masculine handwriting. He couldn't think of anyone who would send him something like this now.

_Nice stationery, Bohemian._

He almost threw it back down with the rest of the unwanted pile, but something, boredom or maybe the purple colour of the envelope drew him.   He turned it over in his hands for a moment, then sat up and switched on the lamp, wincing at the stabbing in his eyes, so that he could examine the writing closely. He couldn't think of any reason why he should do this.   But unquestionably, Sherlock would have done it.

_She used a fountain pen. A Parker Duofold – iridium nib._

It was an invitation from Edwin Veere, a housewarming drinks party. He had moved house, then. Not hard to deduce why, as the card was also signed by Jason Kilbraith, with a little note at the end: " _Please do come, Sir, it would mean so much to both of us to show our respect properly."_

His eyes blurred and darkened. He dropped the card.

Edwin and Jason were creating a life together.   They had had their brush with darkness and danger, and had come out the other side. He wished he could feel something, anything like satisfaction for the part he had played in getting Jason safely home. He didn't feel anything except the pain that had made a permanent home in his gut.

There was a loud rumble in the street below, a delivery truck. The windows rattled and he broke out in a cold sweat and had to grip the edge of the sofa to steady himself again. He groaned. He was pathetic. Worse than the broken man that Sherlock Holmes had picked up, deduced, and made useful to the world again. Loud noises set off a chain reaction of adrenaline, hyperventilation, and claustrophobia that was not the drink. The pattern was all too familiar from the end of his tour in Afghanistan.  

He waited a few minutes in the dark, shaking and trying to catch his breath. It felt like he was being buried alive.

When half an hour passed and he was no better, really, he reached for his new bottle of pills.

# # #

_Post Traumatic Stress Disorder._

_Aggravated._

_Paranoid._

_Borderline psychotic_ (he had read the note upside down.)

 _Delusions, audio hallucinations_ (this last was because he had made the mistake of admitting how often he still saw Sherlock, heard his voice.)

The incidents at Thingvellir, his violent encounter with Clement, handling a gun again for the first time since before Sherlock's death, the blood and the danger, had all sent him back. Far back. That is what they were telling him.

He didn't actually think that beating Clement to within an inch of his life was the problem.

Maybe, it was the solution.

But he kept that opinion to himself.

"How long will I have to take these?" he had asked the psychiatrist that Ella referred him to. For the pills. The man had looked over his chart, looked him over too, taking in John's unshaven chin, and haunted stare.

"It might be perpetual," he said. "You've had more than your share of rather extreme shocks since returning from Afghanistan.   More than most people could cope with-- even if they hadn't your experiences in the war. I say this because you are a doctor, and I know you don't want me to sugar-coat your prognosis. I wouldn't, either. Most in my field don't like to come right out and say it, but many people have a set point beyond which I'm afraid there is little to be done to return to normal."

"Normal." John sniffed his contempt.

"Whatever 'normal' felt like to you. You may never feel that way again. What is important now is to reduce your feelings of being under threat. The pills will help."

"Fine." John took the proffered scrip and rose to leave. He had no intention of taking the pills. Most of the time, he didn't feel anything but the pain, and didn't want to. Not since the last time he watched one of Sherlock's videos on the mobile, or maybe since he raised bruises and blood on Guy Clement's shuddering back.

"I know you understand that pills won't do all your work for you. I'm told you haven't kept up your therapy sessions. Make an effort, Dr. Watson."

John walked out without acknowledging that he had heard. Ella would just ask him to write down his feelings, start his blog again. He couldn't bear that. He never wanted to write anything, ever again. He only sporadically took shifts at the clinic now, just enough to keep his roof over his head and the lights on, and he had forced himself to learn to dictate his chart notes so he didn't have to type them up. It reminded him of typing up cases, and he made an effort, when he could summon the energy to even make an effort, to avoid things that reminded him of Sherlock. Which was futile.

# # #

He held the bottle of pills. His hand shook, his heart pounded, and for all the world he felt like he was trapped in an elevator, far below ground, buried alive. He was a doctor, he indeed knew the pills would make these feelings recede.

Instead, he would feel numb, wrapped in cotton wool.

Possibly they would make him feel something like calm, or even cheerful.

He threw the pills into the fire and poured himself another whisky.

# # #

Edwin Veere's new flat proved to be in a charming mews in Hampstead. After Thingvellir, John had expected a cool modern flat in a Canary Wharf skyscraper. Instead he found himself ringing the bell at an impeccably restored Victorian flat furnished in a classic, comfortable mix of mahogany, leather, and books. Prints of maps, dogs and horses were everywhere. There was soft music playing, something modern and sexy, and delicious cooking smells came from the kitchen.

It was not as difficult as he had imagined it would be to see Jason Kilbraith again. He knew it was too soon, that seeing Jason would bring it all back when he was supposed to be trying to put himself right. He had already privately decided that his case was hopeless. And he could ask Jason questions that only Jason could answer for him now. He didn't think Clement would talk to him, even if he went to visit him in his prison cell.

"Doctor Watson, welcome. We're so grateful you accepted our invitation," Edwin said, taking his coat with that gentle deference he had noticed when they first met. "Aren't we, Jason?"

Jason looked much better.   The sickly-pale look was gone, replaced by a healthy glow. But when Jason tentatively extended his hand, John couldn't help remembering Jason kneeling at his feet. He clasped Jason's hand firmly. Jason didn't squeeze back, his hand unresisting, eyes lowered. He remembered, then.

"Very grateful, yes," Jason murmured.

Edwin gestured for John to follow into the dining room, where there was a sumptuous dinner already set out.

The table was set for three.

John was still for a few long moments, and Edwin and Jason stood by quietly, waiting.

John went to the head of the table and waited for Edwin to pull the chair for him.

* * *

After dinner, Edwin drew John into the library and lit candles. Jason had disappeared somewhere. John's head was buzzing from far too many glasses of strong Burgundy.

"I can't stay," John said. "You shouldn't want me to."

"We both want you to stay."

"Look, honestly, I appreciate this, but -- "

He had seen how they were together. The things that had kept them apart before, Jason's obsessive pursuit of Guy Clement, their natures as submissives, simply didn't matter anymore.

_People will talk_

_If anybody out there still cares, I'm not gay_

_You machine--_

"-- we almost lost each other forever," Edwin was saying, breaking through the loop that played through his head almost all the time. "You helped me find Jason, when no one else would listen. And you saved him. He told me everything."

John raised an eyebrow at that. "Everything?"

He shouldn't be feeling at all proud about it, but he had damn little left in his life to be proud of, and so he let the feeling be.

"Everything," Jason said from the doorway. The warm candlelight outlined the unmistakable silhouette of a long Belstaff overcoat. Jason crossed slowly to John, but John's eyes were locked on the coat, the familiar blue tweed. It was the first time he had seen it since he saw Sherlock with his blood running out after he threw himself from the rooftop. Of course it wasn't actually Sherlock's coat. He couldn't imagine the trouble they must have gone to to acquire it.

He bit his lip, hard, and blinked.

"That c- coat--" he stammered.

"Is it all right, Sir?" Edwin asked gently.

"Turn around," John whispered.

Jason complied. Jason was tall, almost as tall as Sherlock. No one had hair like Sherlock, but he wouldn't think about that. He was only looking at the coat.

"Take it off."

Jason started to let the coat slip over his shoulders, shoulders that were not as broad and elegant as Sherlock's.

"No, stop there. Come here."

Jason stood before him.

_Sherlock stood before him_

"Kneel."

John gently, tenderly rearranged the collar of the coat.

"Thank you, Sir," Jason whispered.

"Shhh. Don't call me that," John said. His bowed head looked nothing like Sherlock.

"There's too much light in here."

Edwin extinguished the candles. The only light was faint moonlight from the window. The only sound was their breathing, which gave away their arousal.

John felt along the edge of the lapel of the coat, down the sleeve.

"You know what I want," he said.

Jason crept closer and slowly undid John's zips. The sound was very loud. Jason swallowed a gasp. John closed his eyes, clutched at the coat. Then he pressed down firmly on his shoulders.

"Do it."

Jason tentatively licked John's head, but quickly adjusted when he was shoved down with surprising roughness. He couldn't help gagging. Doctor Watson was going to fuck his throat. His own cock was instantly full and he thought of the delicious suspense when the Doctor had pulled the clamps from his body.

John took his time, thrusting hard, slow, and deep, savouring the feel of a hot wet throat embracing his cock. It had been ages since anyone had done this with him, and his body roared back to life as if he hadn't spent the past two years like a walking dead man. He kept his eyes tightly shut and held on, the rough texture of the coat moving under his palms far, far more arousing than anything Jason was doing with his experienced mouth. His cock was getting bigger, thicker, every vein standing out, his balls drawing up hard and the pressure almost unbearable. He needed to come. God, he wanted it. He grabbed a fistful of coat, he could almost imagine the smell and the feel of Sherlock right there at his feet, his magnificent lips taking him down whole. He hovered on the brink, lost in this wild vision.

He yanked Jason up.

"Don't you dare make me come," John gasped.

# # #

At 3:00 a.m., a roaming constable in the Heath stopped to check a suspicious-looking man sitting on a bench on Parliament Hill, his face in his hands.

Hampstead Heath was dangerous at night. There had been string of knife attacks on the Heath after dark lately. He wondered if the man was hurt. Somehow he seemed hurt, although as he came closer he didn't see any blood.

"Sir, are you all right?"

He shone his light in the man's face and two hollow, haunted eyes stared blindly up at him.

"Look, sir, you need to be getting home. The Heath's not safe this time of night. Morning, actually. There have been knife attacks, maybe you heard it on the news."

"Leave me alone," the man said coldly. "I can handle myself."

This set the constable off. The man was spoiling for a fight, then.

"Have you been drinking, sir?"

"No more than usual."

"All right, then. You're in no fit state.  You've got three choices: One. Is there someone you can call to pick you up?   Two: we can get you a cab. Three: I can take you to the station for a lovely nap. Pick your poison."

"Did you know. . . there are seventeen classes. . . of poison?" John fumbled toward his pocket.

"What are you on about? Easy, mate. Hands away from your pockets. What are you doing?"

"Just getting my mobile. I'll --" There really was no one. Except Mycroft. He thought of Lestrade, but he had been an utter bastard to the man since Sherlock's death, and they hadn't been able to patch things back together. Truthfully, John hadn't wanted to.

The mobile fell from John's pocket, and the constable helpfully picked it up and read the text message on the screen.

"Here now, why not call Mary? Is she your girlfriend?"

"What? Mary who? No, she's just someone from work. I just met her."

John was slightly puzzled that Mary should be texting him, but too disoriented to think about it. Mary. Blonde. Always smiling. Yesterday she had brought a loaf of walnut bread to the clinic.

"Go on, I baked it myself," she said, passing him a slice slathered with butter to take with his tea. "You look like you could use something sweet."

He looked down at his mobile.

_Mary: Office drinks tomorrow, are you coming?_

"You want my advice, skip the drink for a day or two," the constable said. "So make your call, then, I've got to be moving on."

John called a cab. He looked at the text all the way back to his sterile flat. What was her last name again? He didn't even know how she had got his number.

Mary, something M. Morstan. Mary Morstan.

# # #

He was tempted to fall straight into bed, let sleep take him away from everything that had happened tonight. He could still feel the fabric of the Belstaff in his hands, Jason's mouth on his swollen prick, the thrilling, maddening, damned feeling of imagining it was Sherlock.

It could never be Sherlock.

Sherlock Holmes was dead.

He fiddled with the mobile uncertainly. Then he typed carefully, "I'll be there." He started to add, "Looking forward to it," but then erased it.

He might accept that Sherlock Holmes was dead, but he didn't know how to go forward. The only place he wanted to look was back.

# # #

**Belgrade, Serbia. The Same Night.**

Sherlock stood in the shadows in a narrow dark alley strewn with rubbish. Feral dogs circled him, growling. He growled back, glared, and they slunk back.

He hadn't slept for a week. He thought it had been a week. He was starting to lose track.

The apartment upstairs belonged to a man who made coffins, aptly known as "The Coffin-maker" in certain circles. Coffins that were sometimes sent to places other than graveyards. Sometimes, they were put on trains that went to Russia, or other places.   The coffins contained dead bodies, of course, as coffins naturally should. And also, a little something extra.

The man he had been following was taking a coffin into the south tomorrow. A place in the mountains called _Davolja Varos_.

The Devil's Rock.

If he found what he had been told to look for, his work would be finished.

# # #

It had been twenty long, harrowing months since he threw himself off the roof of Barts and lost everything.  It was almost impossible for Sherlock to believe that in a few short days it could all be over.  He had been in seemingly perpetual motion for as long as he could remember, always trying to get back home, always another obstacle in his way.

Belgrade was notorious for the most debauched, lawless parties in Europe, and there was one going down at the end of the street. Men and women fighting and screaming, music pounding, bottles breaking, guns firing. Sherlock didn't move.

If his target slipped out under the cover of the disorder, he might lose him. And wasn't going to let that happen. That would mean losing everything he had worked for: to make his way back to Baker Street, and John. For them to be safe at last.

He leaned back against the wall and willed his eyes to stay open. When they closed, he saw John, always.

When he returned to London, he would go straight to John, and tell him everything.

 

 


	10. Chapter Ten: The Scar Clocks

 

 

There were wolves in the forest, and they were hunting Sherlock Holmes.

The Master had quoted Julius Caesar on meeting Sherlock for the first time in an anonymous hotel room in Amsterdam,

_"Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look, He thinks too much; such men are dangerous."_

Sherlock had proven him right by surreptitiously drugging The Master with a modified dose of the Baskerville drug, and terrifying the man into telling him all that he knew. The Master had been deceived into bringing to a forged Vermeer to their meeting, and Sherlock could have lived for years, maybe the rest of his life-- assuming he lived past tomorrow-- by selling it on the black market.

He left the painting behind. Like everything else in his life.

Now all he had left were the last remains of his endurance, the will to defeat Moriarty's web, and the burning desire to go home.

The wolves that had pursued him steadily for the past two days were gaining ground. He had a gun but didn't want to attract attention unless he had no other choice. These hills around the Devil's Rocks were a no-man's land, and anybody hearing the gun would shoot him dead and not bother digging him a grave.

It was dark, and bitterly cold, and he was so very weary. He was out of water and his bodily processes were becoming compromised by severe dehydration. He would have to risk climbing down to where he could see trees hugging the banks. There would be a stream there. As he crept down, rocks sliding under his boots, he heard growling and barking. It was coming toward him. Not wolves. Dogs.

Then there were men shouting, and flashlights in the trees all around.

Sherlock ran.

# # #

The Serbian who was most often in charge of his torture was good at his work.

Somehow, they had an idea that Sherlock was a Russian spy. Which was exactly what he wanted them to think-- for as long as he could hold out. As long as they didn't know who he really was, they couldn't threaten John. Therefore, they had very little chance of inducing him to say anything meaningful.

They seemed to have no clue at all about Moriarty here. None of the questions ever approached the edges of Moriarty's web. That was unfortunate, because he intended to learn more from his torturers than they ever would from him.

"If you don't tell us," the Serbian said, "We'll break your legs. From the feet up."

Everything he had told them so far had checked out. This was vital because, like in the story of Scheherazade, if he couldn't keep them interested and hungry for more, that would be the day they killed him.

He had thought that he had a beneficial relationship with pain. It was to be embraced. Pain taught him to guard himself, physically, mentally, and most critically, emotionally. Pain made him strong. Even the yielding demanded of a submissive could be a great strength. It depended on one's perspective. The sting of the lash was for him superior, more desirable, than the warmth of a caress. The demand for superb performance, for obedience to a will outside his own (but not stronger) was a far better teacher than comfort and indulgence. In that realm of discipline, allowing himself to be, or to seem mastered, he had found the key to mastering his own weaknesses. The very worst of which was that sentiment commonly felt as love.

At least that was what he had told himself, until it was too late.

"Now is the time. Tell us who you mean when you say 'John.' Who is 'John'? Sounds like an American name. Are you working with the Americans?"

He had lost control sometime recently --- maybe a week, maybe two. They sometimes drugged him to keep him going, to help him endure more pain, to confuse him. But he was more resistant to the drugs than they realised and his play-acting had prevented them from doing even worse to him. So far. However, among other side effects, the drugs made him lose track of time.

And during one of those hazy times, at the edge of consciousness, he had apparently cried out for John.

# # #

Sherlock tried to keep track by observing the progress, or lack thereof, of the healing of his flesh. They kept re-opening his wounds, though, principally on his back. Chains, ropes, and pipes were the humble tools of his torturer's trade.

There was angry red scar tissue on his shoulders, and examining the texture as closely has he had been able without a mirror led him to conclude that it was collagen matrix tissue that would have taken at least a month to form. He had probably been here for three months, perhaps as long as four. But he also had to consider that they had reopened that particular wound more than once, which required him to start a fresh clock for each new scar. It was a peculiar kind of timekeeping, but the only one he had.

 _Wounds allowed to heal secondarily scar worse than wounds from primary closure_. He tried to keep his mind sharp by remembering these scraps of forensic data. He very much doubted he would survive to see the healing of every open wound they had made on his body. Mycroft should have found him long before now. The fact that he hadn't meant that Mycroft had no means of tracing him, which was probably his own fault.

And so, Sherlock didn't fancy his chances for making it to six months in this hellhole. This place might as well literally be hell. He was never going to make it home to John after all.

His torturer had taken great delight in informing him that they were in Devil's Town, a remote Serbian town near Devil's Rock where he had been captured. Devil's Town was only occasionally visited by Western tourists intrigued by the name, but the tourists never found out how much truth there was in it.

The irony of his predicament had long since ceased to amuse him. He had accomplished his great scheme. Step by grueling step, he had dismantled Moriarty's network. The head might have been cut off the snake when Moriarty killed himself, but a snake's dismembered head could still throw venom for surprising distances, and its body could continue to writhe even without the head.

The final step had been the rendezvous at Devil's Rock. He was finished, he had prevailed, he should have been home by now, in the comfort and safety of Baker Street. For the thousandth time, he let his mind imagine it with as much vivid detail as he could paint, while they did unspeakable things to his body.

# # #

The only way to conquer this aching, morbid desire he felt for Sherlock, John decided, was to put himself back in his proper role in relation to the great detective. He would go back to where he had started, as Sherlock's Boswell.

He carefully wrote up a few of his case notes, and posted them on his blog. He needed to think of Sherlock the way he used to-- the pure pleasure in watching that brilliant mind at work-- and leave his other feelings, not at all pure, behind.

Just last week, Lestrade had come round with a box of random things that had belonged to Sherlock. It was an excuse to break the ice on the deep freeze of their friendship, and it had worked. He had tried to conceal the jolt to his heart when Lestrade announced that he had brought a video of Sherlock.

Illicit images floating there while he listened to Greg's voice, muffled beneath the roaring in his ears, explaining that Sherlock had made it for John's last birthday.

Alone in his flat, he had watched, and drank, and asked Sherlock not to be dead. And then he wept, more than he had done for months, or maybe ever, curling on himself until he fell asleep, exhausted.

The next day, John made a decision. It was time to finally say goodbye to Sherlock Holmes.

He invited Mary Morstan to come with him. She had put up with his gloom and silences, and encouraged him to break his habit of long nights alone in his flat with a constant stream of invitations to a new gastropub, a movie, walks in parks. There were little kindnesses, too; Mary kept up with his blog entries, made positive, reassuring comments when most other people treated him like the world's biggest fool, or worse, for believing in Sherlock Holmes.

_He was my best friend and I'll always believe in him._

If part of this statement was a complete lie, no one would ever know but him.

# # #

Sherlock had spent many an idle hour when waiting and watching in foreign cities imagining John's amazement at his return, his joy that he was alive, his admiration at the sheer brains and willpower that had gotten him through to the other side and home again.

John would be so grateful, and more impressed with him than he had ever been before. They would sit by the fire in 221B and John would ask him to tell the story again, from the beginning, and his eyes would shine with pride and he would smile with that astonished delight that he bestowed on Sherlock alone, and he would tell him that he was the most amazing man he had ever known.

And that was when he would tell John the reason he had done it. Not to save England and even the world from Moriarty's evil (although that was what he had done, with Mycroft's remote assistance.) He had done it to make John Watson safe, him and John and their home together safe. Because nothing in the world mattered more than the two of them being together, and he would show John exactly what he meant this time, and John would let his guard down too. Like a knight in a fairy tale, he had proven himself worthy of John's love, and John would accept his offering, and return it.

And then John would come closer, so close, his warmth and strength supporting him because he was actually dizzy with the flood of unconquerable feelings and John's hair would be golden red in the firelight and his eyes would reflect back flames when last John took him into his arms.

# # #

"Don't you think that all this thinking about the past keeps you from living in the moment?" Mary asked, seemingly casually, over shared coffees on a bench in a green square near the clinic. Her eyes were clear and blue, her smile wry and sometimes a little melancholy, which he thought was probably his fault.

Mary was an uncomplicated woman, and this was probably the most intrusive, intimate thing she had ever said to him. Mary baked, kept an aloof cat, was a hard worker. She had a deft but unsentimental touch with the patients, and had a remarkably cool head for the unexpected, such as patients turning up with gruesome wounds or fatal diseases.

John appreciated that. His own feelings, such as they were (passionate, decadent, romantic, and hopeless, he had listed them), were bottled up tightly. If possible, even more tightly than before. It was necessary to prevent them from eating him alive.

But unlike most women (and the very few men) in his experience, Mary didn't seem at all interested in anything that he wasn't prepared to give. They had had sex, after a decorous interval -- he still wouldn't call it lovemaking just yet, but he was starting to imagine that it could be like that, someday. He had treated her with gentle respect, like something breakable, not something to break and claim. It had been a comfort, which probably wasn't the most ringing endorsement he had ever given-- but in his present state, it was all he was capable of feeling.

John didn't answer Mary's question. Instead, later that same day, he asked Mary to come with him to Sherlock's grave. So that he wouldn't be alone when he finally said goodbye.

# # #

"This is your last chance. Who is 'John'?"

Sherlock smiled through bloody, cracked lips. He wasn't in 221B, wasn't in John's arms. He was in a filthy cell in Devil's Town, and his time was almost up.

"My dealer. In Miami."

"Mobile number? Address?"

He was running out of stories to tell.

"They text me locations on burner phones. I'm not a dealer. I just buy for me."

The Serbian sighed heavily, and wrenched his shaved head on his massive shoulders. Sherlock had long since decoded his jailhouse and gang tattoos. He had killed fifteen men.

"A little something. . . to help your memory about this 'John'."

It had gotten to the point that he looked forward to the rope as an act of kindness.

But he brought down the pipe, and Sherlock screamed.


	11. Chapter Eleven: Bomb Disposal

 

 

 

**_3rd November.  Landmark Hotel, Marylebone, London._ **

Sherlock was standing right there before him, close enough to touch, vivid and penitent, bright eyes cast down.   Lips trembling, swollen and red from rubbing at the stupid black marks.  The sight of him was infuriating, heartbreaking.   Sherlock Holmes was alive.  His prayer had been answered, after all. 

The thing inside that had been kept locked down tight struggled free and exploded like stepping on a land mine.  What happened next had the unreal, slow-motion quality of a dream: he launched into Sherlock and they hit the floor.  Then Sherlock was laid out under him, and the only clear thought he was able to form was that this may have been the most perfect thing he had ever felt.  He reached for the nearest bare flesh, Sherlock's long, slender throat, tried to capture it with his hands.  He needed to squeeze until Sherlock gasped and begged.  For what, he wasn't sure. 

What he was sure of was that Sherlock wasn't really resisting, although he wrapped his long hands around John's wrists to prevent him, maybe, from rutting against him in public before his almost-fiancée Mary.

"Leave now or I'm calling the police," the manager snapped.

# # #

John couldn't sleep.  His mind kept drifting to back to Baker Street.  Sherlock would be home now.  He reminded himself that 221B wasn't "home" anymore.  Anyway, Sherlock would be sleeping in his old bed for the first time in 2 years.  Was Sherlock awake now too, he wondered, staring at the ceiling and replaying this moment:  

He was roaring and his heart felt like bursting and everything was blurring and falling apart and Sherlock's hard cock was brushing against his thigh, he was almost certain of it, and someone was dragging him off of Sherlock and Sherlock's eyes were shut tight and he was tossed into a chair and held down by strangers before he could decide of Sherlock had felt how hard he was, too. 

He panted, head in his hands, and Mary's surprisingly firm hand gripped his shoulder, whether to steady or restrain him, he was too far gone to notice.  Two harrowing years of soul-shattering grief seemed as though they had never been at all in that wild, suspended moment that they writhed against each other on the hard floor.

# # #

 Mary slept peacefully, as though she hadn't a care in the world.  So far as he knew, the only trouble in her life was John Watson's obsession with the past, specifically with Sherlock Holmes.  Yet she had been surprisingly level-headed about Sherlock's miraculous return.   She hadn't mentioned the interrupted proposal.   He could always count on Mary to bring him back down to earth.   She even made it clear that she liked the bastard.   His current feelings were quite the opposite, he assured himself. 

His fit of madness at the Landmark was just that.  Madness.  The madness that had started when he first saw Sherlock's videos on that damned mobile.  Sherlock had left him behind for two years, without a backward glance at the wreckage he had made of John Watson.  Mary Morstan was the only thing that had pulled him back from the edge -- a real edge, not the illusion, the deception that had been practiced upon him by Sherlock Holmes.  Self-contempt washed over him as he contemplated his hopeless obsession with Sherlock's ghost, chasing after it to Iceland, seeking it in the feel of a handmade crop, in  the texture of a secondhand Belstaff overcoat, in the sound of Sherlock's ragged breath in the videos.

The madness ended tonight.  Sherlock's return meant one thing, and one thing only:  That his morbid romance with Sherlock's ghost had been even more pathetic than he had admitted to himself.  Now he knew for certain that Sherlock Holmes possessed nothing resembling a heart, and while it was Mycroft who was known as the Iceman, it was Sherlock Holmes who truly had ice water running through his veins. 

# # #

John quietly rose from bed, careful not to disturb Mary, although she was a heavy sleeper.  He padded into the spare room where at the back of the closet he kept his black leather duffle.  He slowly unzipped it, unable to suppress images from the last time he had opened it, in Thingvellir.  The mobile was still there.  

The battery was run down from long neglect.  It didn't matter, he wasn't going to look at these videos, ever again.  He would throw the thing away. 

Probably it would be better, though, to delete the videos altogether, so that no one else would ever see Sherlock Holmes that way.  He would be the last, he thought with strange satisfaction.

But when the mobile glowed on, he found that the video files had vanished.   The mobile had been wiped clean.  He frowned, trying not to acknowledge the ache of loss, the possessive frustration that threatened to rise up.  The last person to touch his things had been Jason Kilbraith, in Guy Clement's house.  John had deliberately not looked at the videos again after the incident with Guy Clement.  Jason must have deleted them.  John knew that the man had been powerfully jealous of Sherlock's hold over Clement. 

Now the mobile felt different in his hand somehow, which was ridiculous.  The fact that his chest was heaving and his hand clenching convulsively meant nothing more than that he was still rattled by Sherlock's reappearance.  He  stared stupidly at the little rectangle of black glass in the palm of his hand, where Sherlock would never appear again.  He stumbled to the window and threw it open, pulling in ragged lungfuls of air. 

The street below was very quiet.  This time of night, the street sounds in Baker Street would be reliably steady, even comforting.  He wound up to toss the mobile as far as it would go into the street, where it would be crushed by passing cars in the morning.  But the weight of it somehow stayed his hand. 

He stroked the blank black glass with his thumb, then put it back in the pocket of the duffle, zipped it closed, put the duffle at the back of the closet, and shut the door.

He couldn't go back to sleep like this.  He padded out to the sitting room, where he kept a bottle stashed in the bookcase cupboard.  He poured a bare finger's worth and sipped slowly, thinking.  Those thoughts inevitably were of Sherlock, and with the whisky to dull the pain, he didn't try to stop.  After he finished his drink, he observed the shaking of his hand when he put the empty glass down.  He would have to go take one of his pills or everyone would see the truth in the morning.  If he was even able to get up in the morning.

# # #

On a secret app on her phone, Mary watched John's progress from the bed, to the spare bedroom, into the closet, the production over the mobile, and finally,  John's moody drinking in his chair.  The hidden webcams were state of the art and she had an excellent view of John's expression.  Earlier tonight, after Sherlock's return, John had been in a silent, seething rage.   That had been rather entertaining, on the whole, and also quite satisfactory.  She looked forward to playing the peacemaker. 

She would have given a great deal to have equivalent access to the interior of 221b, but Mycroft's security precautions there were surprisingly effective.  She would have to try harder.  Janine would undoubtedly be able to help there.

Now John looked restless. He was staring moodily at their front door.   He quite obviously was holding himself back from going to Sherlock at Baker Street this instant, which happened to be four o' clock in the morning.

So much for playing peacemaker.  Stronger measures were called for.  Mary was excellent at contingency planning,  and so it was no trouble at all to send a few texts to prearranged numbers, despite the hour. 

Tomorrow was Bonfire Night, and if all went according to plan, by the end of the night both Sherlock Holmes and John Watson would be convinced that attempting to reunite would be to risk John's life. 

If she was right in her assessment of John, his PTSD would come roaring back with a vengeance -- not that he really had had much of a recovery -- and John would be confirmed in his determination that a safe, domestic life with safe, reliable Mary Morstan was the only door open to him, and Sherlock might even drive John away for his own safety, lacerating his heart as thoroughly as the Serbians had lacerated his body.

Her assessment was confirmed when she watched him stumble into the bathroom and shake a pill, and then a second one, into his palm, and swallow them.

With these pleasurable impressions to soothe her, Mary drifted back into a sound and dreamless sleep.

* * *

Sherlock tried to close his eyes, but sleep wouldn't come.  His parents would be here in the morning, and he wished very much that he could send them away.  He had been away for 2 years, but he had no time for them now.  He had a number of pressing matters, Charles Augustus Magnussen principally.  But nothing more pressing than discovering who had tried to kill John, and why.

Sherlock had thought that the very worst, the most frightening thing that had ever happened to him was on the rooftop of Barts with Moriarty, picturing a sniper's sight trained on John Watson's skull.  Being who he was, his brain had been flooded with the most vivid images possible of what John's skull would look like as the bullet struck: large portions of his skull would be blown off, and a brief spurt of pink mist would burst forth before his body collapsed, the cords of life cut clean away.  Of course he was willing to do anything, everything, to prevent that from happening to John. 

And he had thought that he had.  Two whole years of terrible danger, deprivation and even torture he had braved to make John safe.  And yet within a day of his return to London, someone had tried to kill John Watson in an even more horrific way than a sniper's bullet - bound, drugged, and nearly burned to death in a bonfire. 

He had been close to cradling John in his arms, after, but Mary had pushed Sherlock firmly away from John, reminding him in that calm, measured voice that she was a nurse.  Leaving him to return alone to 221B and stare at the ceiling all night, imagining in excruciating detail what would have happened to John in that fire if he hadn't gotten there in time.  John had been barely conscious, barely able to speak when he was dragged from the heart of the bonfire, bystanders shrieking and the roar of fire all around.  John's lips had moved, maybe had tried to say his name, Sherlock couldn't be sure and thought he was probably delusional.  He refused to dwell on what that may have meant. 

He felt deep guilt.  He was unworthy of John in every way.  His very presence in John's life was toxic, put his life in danger, as was proven over and over again.

He would never have known at all, never have made it in time, if it hadn't been for Mary.

Thank god for Mary, he thought bitterly, and was immediately ashamed of himself.

* * *

He knew he should be even more ashamed of himself the next day, when he and John found the bomb in the train carriage.    He had deduced that these were highly capable bomb-makers due to the extent of their planning  -- the business of the hidden tunnel was really very clever --  and balance of probabilities, Sherlock knew they would use the standard precaution  of an off switch. 

Yes, he had made an utter cock-up of his return to London and to John Watson.  He had made a complete fool of himself at the restaurant, and had come perilously close to exposing his deepest feelings.  With John furiously trying to pin him down, the self-control over his body and responses that he had deployed against the most skilled doms in Europe evaporated.    People had dragged John off just in time, to his relief and regret. But he had concealed the agonizing pain in his back when they hit the cold, hard floor. His scars throbbed and ached, but he almost welcomed it. The memory was bittersweet. John would never touch him like that again.

Now he would do this the right way, and John would have to listen.

First things first.  He knelt over the bomb, surreptitiously flipped the switch, and then realised he was just where he should be, and so he stayed just as he was.  On his knees before John Watson. 

He had had a semi-rehearsed speech, but seeing John's stricken face, his utter disbelief that Sherlock could have led them into this trap, drove the fragile words from his mind.  His hands clasped in supplication and he begged John Watson to forgive him, strangled with sour tears.  He was unworthy, and he didn't know how to set things right. But it felt perfect to be on his knees before this man, if only John could see what it meant and how he truly felt.  John just gaped.

"I can't do it, John.  I don't know how."

But John loved Mary.  And now he had lost his respect.  John accused him, with deadly accuracy, of playing a trick.   He babbled something about how John would still have had a future with Mary if he hadn't come back, and while he meant every word, he also breathlessly waited for John to deny it.

"Yeah.  I know."

 They were on the brink of death, so John thought  (and so they might be if he was actually wrong about the off switch), and if ever there was a time for an ill-timed declaration of eternal love, this was it.  And maybe that was what John made, in his own uniquely honorable way:

"You were the best and wisest man . . . that I have ever known.  Yes, of course I forgive you."

And John steeled himself to die.

Sherlock lowered his head, unable to watch him like this a second longer.  There would be no last-minute confession, on either side.  He was a complete and utter fool and any ridiculous hopes he had had of making a reckless, passionate declaration were crushed for good. 

He would give them a clean death, then. 

He covered his face and forced a laugh, and fortunately his hysterically taut nerves cooperated.  The tears streaming down his face would plausibly be taken for tears of laughter.  It took a few minutes, and John called him a cock and threatened to kill him, but in the end John finally laughed, too.  Which was the best he could possible salvage from the mess he had made.

# # #

The next day Sherlock brought out a bottle of champagne that he had saved specially, to toast John and Mary's impending nuptials.  The bottle might as well be put to good use. John would never know why he had really bought it.

He ignored the look that John had given him as he emerged from his bedroom, freshly showered and dressed in a good suit.  It was only wishful thinking that John seemed utterly dazzled.  Sherlock pushed past, unable to suppress a wholly inappropriate smile in return.   John would  of course imagine that it was happiness for the occasion, nothing more.

 "We thought a spring wedding," Mary announced confidently, although she admitted they hadn't actually gotten engaged.  She turned something of an accusatory stare at Sherlock.  For a moment her blue gaze felt almost felt threatening, but he shook it off as predicable and childish jealousy that he needed to get past if he was going to have any part at all in John's new life.  

Anyway, it was time to go meet the press.

# # #

John was nearly off to sleep at last.  Mary's cool hand was clasped firmly over his.  He was a bit woozy because he wasn't really supposed to drink when he was taking his pills.  He had seen Sherlock return from the dead, and had nearly been violently killed not once, but twice in the past 48 hours.  The only way he had even been able to stand upright, let alone leave the flat and work and generally speak to other human beings as though everything was fine was because of the pills.  That, and the sheer determination not to let Sherlock - -no, he meant Mary, of course --  see him fall to pieces.

After the disastrous, miraculous night at the Landmark, he hadn't actually, formally proposed to Mary, despite his playful threat as he shaved away the moustache that she apparently so disliked.  That Sherlock disliked.  But Mary started telling everyone they were having a spring wedding.  He himself had somehow thought that they would get around to it after he had time to sort himself out, stop feeling like what he was - a shot-up soldier with PTSD who had been thrown right back into the battlefield, right there in the streets of London.  Which is what happened with Sherlock Holmes.   Something in the back of his brain was whispering to him that the return of his limp and tremor was not due to Sherlock coming back at all, but because everything was just moving far too fast.  The truth was, he needed to get his head around what had happened in the train carriage.

The cold, cerebral sociopath, Sherlock Holmes, had actually gone on his knees and begged him for forgiveness.  He had never been more shocked in his life - not even when Sherlock had returned just two nights past, although with the foggy sensation that the drug gave him, it seemed already as though Sherlock hadn't really been gone at all, that it had all been a very bad dream.  Two days back and Sherlock was right back in his heart and under his skin and unless he was able to sleep soon, in his hopeless fantasies as well.

 With the horror of the bomb timer counting down implacably,  he very nearly told Sherlock the truth.  But he stopped himself, thank god.  It would have been very wrong for the last thing that passed between  him and Sherlock Holmes in this life was some kind of desperate embrace, let alone a first and last kiss. Sherlock had always made it very clear that such displays were abhorrent to him.  No, he had made sure that there was nothing but the highest respect between them at the end, and that they would die with dignity, as fellow soliders of a unique kind. 

A solider could ask for nothing more.

His tormented brain finally slipped into a deep, drug-and-alcohol induced sleep.  If John dreamed, only Mary knew it.

 

 


	12. Chapter Twelve: Prohibition

 

 

 

John had always known he would have to get well and truly smashed to get through his stag do with Sherlock.

Sherlock was throwing himself into the spirit of all traditions associated with his impending wedding. John shook his head and took another swig of his elaborate cocktail. "Impending" reminded him of "incoming" -- as in guided rockets that had killed so many of his comrades. Something aimed from far away, with deadly accuracy, and which invariably one saw far too late.

Sherlock was concentrating fiercely on calculating their respective alcohol intake, apparently to prevent them getting obliterated with drink. That bothered him. As usual of late, everything between them seemed at cross-purposes, even though Sherlock was almost literally bending over backwards to accept Mary's permanent presence in his life now. Tonight was a perfect example: he wanted, even needed, to get well and truly drunk tonight. But Sherlock seemed bound and determined to keep things at the level of a civilized buzz.

Sherlock was holding aloft the ridiculous yet charming beaker that he had thoughtfully provided, so as to ensure accurate alcohol dosages at each venue along their pub crawl of clubs they had visited for murder cases. Music was pounding, lights were flashing, the crowd was jumping, and the only thing he had eyes for was the long, pale column of Sherlock's throat as he tipped his head back and drank.

"Fuck that," he swore under his breath.

"Wha?" Sherlock squinted at him through the shifting coloured light.

John didn't answer, but took Sherlock's beaker in one fist and his own in the other and went to the bar. Making sure Sherlock couldn't see, he ordered a few vodka shots, knocked his back, and poured one into Sherlock's for good measure. He smiled. Much better.

# # #

"This isn't right," John said. His sense of direction was honed in war, and infallible even when he was inebriated, which he was unfortunately far from. He had a much higher tolerance for drink than Sherlock Holmes, which was surprising given Sherlock's history of drug abuse.

Sherlock was smiling to himself with a self-satisfied air.

"It is right. Just follow me," Sherlock said with unwavering confidence, weaving just slightly along the dark but crowded street.

"No, give me the bloody list, then." Without asking permission, he reached into Sherlock's pocket and withdrew the folded map and list of their appointed pubs for the stag do. There was one name rubbed out.

He peered at the map in the light of a blinking sign:

_"All Nude * All Studs * All Night"_

"I knew I was right. We don't want to skip "Prohibition". That one should be next stop, I reckon."

"But - John - " Sherlock looked down, all swagger gone. "I thought --"

John smiled, trying to keep the bitterness out of it. This drunk, Sherlock probably wouldn't notice.

"You made the rules - we're going to every bar in London where we've done a murder case. It wouldn't be right to leave one out. And I've such fond memories of the place, too," he said lightly, just to show it didn't mean anything that the last time they had been at Prohibition, they had pretended to be a couple.

His mind drifted back.

# # #

 _"We should split up, we can talk to more men,"_ Sherlock was saying. He wore a new shirt, impossibly tight, and trousers that left nothing to the imagination.

 _Not that I'm imagining anything_ , John assured himself.

But he didn't like the idea of watching Sherlock cruise strange men in this club. Even at the door, men were eyeing Sherlock with lingering, not at all subtle looks. John scowled at them and leaned fractionally closer to Sherlock.

"No," he said firmly. "We'll act like we're a couple. They'll be less suspicious that way, yes? It's just an hour."

Sherlock raised a quizzical eyebrow, but his eyes were uncertain. "I didn't want to . . . assume. Very well. And you're right. But don't worry, it's not expected that we make any sort of display. At least not -- not in the front rooms."

"I'm not worried."

John pushed ahead and led Sherlock by the hand inside.

# # #

The charade lasted exactly fifteen minutes, which was how long it took for Sherlock to identify a key witness and get him to start talking. Sherlock's method involved standing far too close in the poor man's personal space, and touching his bare forearm in an intimate manner precisely once every thirty seconds. After the third time, John gave Sherlock's hand a warning squeeze, earning a startled, wide-eyed stare back from Sherlock.

By then, though, their witness was spilling it. John stood back and watched. A man passed and whispered in his ear.

"If he's not paying you enough attention, I'll take over."

John was about to turn a hard glare back at the man for his presumption, but Sherlock with his unerring ability to observe every bloody thing in a room with the eyes in the back of his head, swerved as though he had somehow overheard. Perhaps he had.

"Thanks."John flashed his most brilliant and wicked smile. He had occasionally stunned fellow soldiers with it when the rare impulse took him, with interesting effect. "But he'll make it up to me later."

John realised his mistake when Sherlock moved in close, closer than he had done with the witness, and locked eyes with him. They were shining, wide, and dark in the dim light of the bar.

"You can be sure of that," Sherlock murmured, low and promising. So low, in fact, that John was pretty sure no one else heard. Since the whole point of the exercise was to get witnesses talking, there was really no purpose to this.

For a long minute, neither of them moved.

Sherlock looked away first, and John could swear he was colouring up.

"I think we're done here," John said. Sherlock nodded and they went out into the cold, damp London night.

Sherlock immediately dropped his hand, and they both walked on with their hands bunched into their respective coat pockets.

# # #

The door to Prohibition looked just the same on the outside, but most of the clientele tonight seemed very different. The music was harsh to his ears, not the driving house beats from last time. Most of the older men here were in black leather. Many of the younger men wore pale, thin shirts and trousers that seemed ready to be torn off.

Neither of them were dressed for this particular venue, and John saw Sherlock preparing to tell some story to the bouncer to get them inside. But the bouncer caught John's eye with recognition and nodded them through before Sherlock could open his mouth. John dimly remembered seeing the man guarding the door of the shop where he had ordered his bespoke implements in Amen Court, all those months ago. He gave a slight nod as they passed.

John's heart thudded and skipped. What impulse had pushed him to insist on this? He had imagined a fun, maybe even playful excursion, another drink, maybe even a little dancing. He was well and truly buzzing now and Sherlock looked to be worse. He felt like dancing and it had seemed as though he might have the chance here to dance like this with Sherlock, just for a lark. Just this once. Certainly nobody would look twice, not at Prohibition.

The dancing he had in his alcohol-addled mind was not the solemn and formal dancing lessons that Sherlock had been putting him through, holding each other stiffly and at arm's length to the tune of a rather ravishing, romantic violin waltz of Sherlock's own composing.  Still, he had been proud of himself for getting into the spirit of the thing, touched that Sherlock was making this special effort, all for him, which was utterly like the old Sherlock Holmes.

He wondered sometimes if Sherlock wasn't trying to show him that he really wasn't completely selfish and heartless, as he had led everyone to believe. That Sherlock had led him to believe. But now, on the eve of his wedding, it seemed like some kind of divine punishment that Sherlock should be so very earnest and eager to show him that it didn't hurt at all that he wasn't ever coming back to 221b and that he was marrying Mary.

# # #

There was nothing light and playful in this club tonight. In a pause between songs, he heard a distant smack that could only be a crop on naked flesh, coming from behind a dark doorway in the back. His eyes flew to Sherlock. Sherlock almost imperceptibly froze, maybe flinched a little, head down.

They should leave now. Tonight had felt like a game, but this was turning it into something different. He felt men's eyes on them, speculative. He didn't think Sherlock had noticed that the bouncer had recognised him, because if he had, the game would be up. He couldn't think of a way he could explain it away. Sherlock would know if he lied, he always knew. He wondered if Sherlock was known here, maybe, from before. The idea predictably made his blood rise up. Tonight was really supposed to be about putting the past behind them, proving to themselves that they could still be comrades in arms, an honourable tour to commemorate some of their old cases.

It was about toasting the end of his bachelorhood, and the beginning of his new life with Mary.

Prohibition didn't seem to be the best place for that -- but some things, he told himself, were meant to be.

 _Do you believe in fate, sir?_ Edwin Veere asked, proffering the mobile with videos of Sherlock, naked and rebellious in submission.

"I'll get the drinks," John said firmly before Sherlock could say whatever it was he had been about to say. Sherlock just nodded and kept his eyes unusually down.

# # #

A man walked by with a sub on a leash and passed into the dark room at the back. He felt Sherlock watching his reactions. He was torn. He wanted the impossible, and the fact that he still wanted this, wanted it possibly more than he had ever wanted anything, was just more evidence that he didn't understand himself, as his therapist was always telling him. It was the drink, and the music, the look on Sherlock's face, confused and tentative and questioning, all if it was making him feel trapped, but just one step from setting himself free.

Someone in the back room was counting out strokes as he returned to Sherlock with their drinks.

Yes, it was a crop.

"Four. Five. Six."

They both sipped silently.

John hoped that what he was thinking, what he was picturing, what he had seen on the mobile, didn't show in his face. Or in the insistent throbbing in his groin that he had to exercise all of his considerable self-control to suppress.

Thankfully, Sherlock was not studying his face, but was absorbing the sounds, which John knew with a pang must be all too familiar. Sherlock scanned the crowd surreptitiously and John wondered who he was looking for. He had a wild impulse to order him to keep his eyes down. He wanted desperately to know what Sherlock would do if he did. He bit his tongue.

He would never know that.

He finished his drink in a long gulp. Then he took Sherlock's and finished that too.

"It's not the same as before," he said over the music.

Sherlock nodded, too fast.

"Let's get out here."

# # #

Safely back in 221b, John was able to shake off the strange, powerful longing from the club.

They played a game of Rizla at Sherlock's insistence, and he was so far in his cups that his legs fell open and he couldn't stop looking at Sherlock, happily drunk and charmingly confused, as though he were the love of his life.

"I don't know who you're supposed to be," Sherlock admitted plaintively.

He impulsively groped at Sherlock's knee, his free hand straying between Sherlock's thighs.

"I don't mind," he said, the drink and something else, desperate and warm and true, bubbled up inside.

"Any time," Sherlock mumbled, his sharp eyes following his hand carefully, regretfully, even through the drink.

Somehow they ended up on the sofa together.

"The night you came back. . ." John leaned in close. Sherlock Holmes by firelight was every kind of perfection, everything he wasn't supposed to have, and didn't deserve. He was going to marry Mary.

"The night I came back," Sherlock repeated, serious now, his lips parted.

John wouldn't have said anything more if he hadn't been so very drunk. He had no business saying anything more. But his mouth seemed to have a will of its own tonight.

"Did I feel. . . what I think I felt? When we --"

Sherlock leaned back, half-reclining now on the sofa. The firelight outlined his heartbreaking profile.

"--did you want to?" Sherlock whispered back, mischief fading to something darker.

"Do you want --" John's heart was thundering so hard he was certain he was actually having a coronary for a moment. It showed no sign of slowing down. How could it, with Sherlock so very close, looking at him like that. He needed to show Sherlock how that made him feel.

"John," Sherlock said, a simple but complete affirmation, laying back against the cushions with his long legs parted just enough for John to slip slowly between them on his hands and knees until Sherlock was trapped beneath him.

"Don't move," John said. He was dizzy with terror and desire. Sherlock immediately stilled, a beautiful, trusting calm over his face. John could almost taste the sweetness of the whisky on his breath. Any closer and their bodies would be touching, and he would feel again what he had felt fleetingly when they grappled on the floor of the Landmark.

He would maybe learn if Sherlock might wish to give John Watson what he had refused Guy Clement.

The room started to spin. His arms buckled. Sherlock caught him and for a moment they were back in time, pressed together on the floor of the Landmark, the world falling away, hearts thudding in their chests and cocks pressed together, hard and exhilarating.

"Oh, god," John gasped. His vision blurred and darkened.

"John," Sherlock slurred. But he sounded worried. He sat upright, pulling John gently with him.

# # #

John wanted to remind Sherlock that he had ordered him not to move. But that was just a dream. He was very, very drunk, drunk as he had always intended to be, but now his fuzzy brain was forced to reckon with the fact that he was far too drunk to act on whatever this was. Even though he had started it. He thought he had started it, anyway. He thought he had always meant to, tonight. The last night.

Sherlock's expression wasn't quite as trusting now.   Sad, and resigned, maybe, if John had been in any fit condition to judge. He squinted into the light. It reminded him of the white light of the Aurora Borealis at Thingvellir.

_The white light is the rarest._

Sherlock's face was a gorgeous blur.

"You're very drunk, John," Sherlock whispered. John's head tipped back. Sherlock shimmered between his eyelashes.

In a few moments, or maybe it was a few hours, there was a knock at the door.

Mrs. Hudson announced their new client.

This was good. Everything fell back into place. They were Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson, consulting detective and his faithful blogger and protector. Anything else they might have been tonight, or any other night, faded like the end of an achingly beautiful but half-remembered dream.

They shut the door to 221b and went down into Baker Street.

 


	13. Chapter Thirteen: Prospectus

Chapter Thirteen: Prospectus

John didn't much like his new local.

In Baker Street, his local was -- had been -- the Gunmaker's, a pub with a decent tradition and not yet too sanitized. His new local, the Anchor, was more a gastropub, but he insisted on being able to walk to his local and it was the only pub in walking distance. The Anchor was usually filled to overflowing into the street, but the barman turned out to be a friend of a friend from his former regiment, and kept a quiet corner table in the back for John, if given early warning.

It had been a week since the frustrating, tantalising and ultimately mortifying stag do with Sherlock -- ending with Lestrade putting them in the drunk cell for the night. He hadn't liked to think of Sherlock having to sleep on the filthy floor so he had sat with his back against the wall, contemplating his sins, and let Sherlock take the narrow bench. Still, Sherlock had squirmed uncomfortably all night and had cried out in his sleep once, which immediately roused him from his own drunken haze. He had tentatively patted Sherlock's arm until he settled, a reversal of their former roles. In the months after he had first shared rooms with Sherlock, he had been the one to wake in the night with nightmares, and Sherlock had often enough soothed him with his violin.

He was more or less recovered now from his spectacular hangover, and didn't fancy drinking alone in the flat. Not tonight. That was bound to put him in mind of the long, bitter months -- two long years -- he had spent drowning his sorrows alone with a whisky bottle and the gun.  

Mary was off on some obscure errand relating to planning the wedding. Obscure because she hadn't asked for him to come and he hadn't volunteered, either. And so, John found himself quite alone for the evening first time he could remember in a while. The thought did briefly cross his mind as to what sort of wedding planning would be happening at night, but his mind didn't want to hold onto the mild disquiet.

# # #

The barman had his favourite bitter at the ready.

"Thanks, Jake."

Jake grinned. "Less than a month now, isn't that right?"

"Less than? Oh. Yeah. The wedding. That's right."

He stared into his glass. His stomach was not too keen. Truth be told, his stomach had been in knots since stag night.

"Better drink up now then, mate," Jake shouted over the crowd of sharp City types that suddenly assaulted the bar in a wave, and gestured to John's table in the quietest corner. "Go on."

John felt strange, all alone with the raucous crowd. So different to his stag do with Sherlock, which in spite of everything had been, in its own unique way as things with Sherlock tended to be, actually quite perfect, he realised.  Especially since he was almost certain Sherlock didn't remember the moment on the couch when he had ordered him to be still.   It would be his own private memory, one that he knew he would torment himself over for a while.   Just a few days, anyway. After the wedding, he definitely wouldn't be letting himself think about it anymore. Giving himself a hard deadline made it easier, somehow, to let himself obsess about it now.

Sherlock hadn't had a clue. He figured he ought to be embarrassed now at how far he had let things go, except that he couldn't really bring himself to feel that way. It was hard to understand how the Sherlock he had seen on the videos could have failed to pick up on what he had meant to be an open invitation, especially as Sherlock Holmes was the most observant man in London. Sherlock had collapsed in a muddle from the drink, though, too much alcohol steeping that brilliant brain.

He smiled to himself. Sherlock had been rather funny, actually, and also unavoidably sexy in an unexpectedly naive and almost delicate way, flinging himself on his knees on the floor of the dead man's flat. He had had the devil's own time not following him down, the client be damned.

No wonder they had gotten arrested.

# # #

Later, when Sherlock was puzzled as to why the man he dubbed "The Mayfly Man" should have wanted to sneak into dead men's flats for dates with strangers from the internet, he had put it to Sherlock bluntly that he shouldn't be surprised that a man might go to unusual lengths for "a few one night stands."

What he hadn't expected was a quiet sort of look that might have been disappointment, or hurt -- he couldn't be sure because the look was gone as soon as it had crossed Sherlock's face. Still, it bothered him. He sipped his pint thoughtfully.

After all, he was the one that reserved the right to be hurt and disappointed in this relationship, such as it was, he reminded himself. It was Sherlock who was insensitive, unfeeling, and sometimes even cruel.

Not John Watson.

Still, both Mary and Harry had left shocked comments on his blog when he added that the thing was "quite a good trick."

Sherlock had, quite unusually, refrained from any comment on The Mayfly Man blog entry. Complete silence.  That bothered him too. It was this minor bit of evidence - or absence of evidence, as Sherlock would have said -- that was the only thing that made him think that maybe Sherlock remembered more about stag night than he was letting on.

If so, what did that mean?

"Hello, Doctor Watson."

A dark shadow loomed over him. He looked up, almost expecting Sherlock. Which was obviously not realistic. Sherlock never came to his new neighborhood.

A slim, pale hand was held out to his, and he shook it.

It was Edwin Veere.

# # #

"May I?"

John nodded, and Veere removed his coat - thankfully, not the Belstaff from that night -- and sat.

"Bit far from Hampstead," John said evenly. He didn't like to see Veere now. He would be married in less than a month. Mary truly had changed his life. His flirtation with their world of dominance and submission, masters and slaves, pain and pleasure was over and done with. It had been part of his morbid obsession with a very private part of Sherlock that he was quite clearly never going to reveal to John.   And why should he? In less than a month he would be married to a woman who had brought him out of the dark and if not into the light, then something close enough. A simple life. Work, quiet home-cooked meals, occasional drinks parties with work friends, a predicable routine.

It wasn't at all exciting, and that was why it was exactly what he needed for the next stage of his life.

"It is. I . . .wanted to see you. I was going to your flat, but then I passed you on the street. I hope it's all right."

John gave Edwin a look. He knew they were both remembering the night in Edwin's flat, Jason down on his knees, gagging on his cock.  Maybe he wanted him to remember.

"To tell the truth, it's not. I wish you and Jason all the best. But I'm getting married next month. Fresh start. And this --" he gestured between them, indicating the tenuous but still present bond between them, dom and sub -- "is over for me. And I don't think I have to remind you that it's not something I want known. It was my private business, and no one else's. If you had gone to my flat, you might have met my fiancée there. I wouldn't take that at all kindly."

On the whole, looking back, he thought Veere had done him no favour when he had sought him out to find Jason Kilbraith and given him the secret videos. He never should have seen them. He wished that he could put them out of his mind altogether. After the honeymoon, he promised himself. And then, no more. Thankfully the videos themselves were gone, deleted. Eventually they would fade from his own memory as long as he didn't keep bringing them back.

He wasn't sure if he was glad or regretful that he lacked Sherlock's talent at deletion.

"Of course. Sir. I would never betray your trust, or your privacy."

"Then why are you here?"

Edwin held out a black envelope.  John could have rejected it, but his hand reached out and pulled it in. It felt thick, like it had a dossier inside. It had a black wax seal.  And it contained something else, small and hard, like a thumb drive. He turned hot and cold all over. He knew he should push the envelope back to Veere but instead, his hand closed over it.

"Congratulations, sir. I didn't know you were getting married --"

"-- Don't even think about it," John hissed, foreclosing any question at all about his relationship with Mary from this man. The two worlds would never cross.

"Jason wanted you to have these videos. He said --"

"Why didn't he come himself?"

"He thought you would think he was being . . . presumptuous. And we couldn't send it in the post. It's against the rules, you see."

"Rules?"

"Well, as you say, you're getting married. So maybe doesn't matter, it's not for me to judge. Jason says, it was wrong for him to keep these videos. He's very sorry, and, well, he feels guilty about it . . . and he thought -- we thought -- they should be given to you."

John gripped the table.   "Look. They aren't really -- if they belong to anyone, they belong to Mr. Holmes now. I only ever had them for the case, remember?"

Edwin nodded, looked down, visibly trembling a bit at John's anger.

"Forgive me, sir. The last thing we want to do is displease you."

John pulled the envelope off the table and folded it into his coat pocket.

"Are these the only remaining copies of the videos, then? Jason doesn't have backup copies?"

"Clement had some, at the house in Iceland. But Jason deleted them all before the police came. You know he world-class at that kind of thing."

"Why would he do that, anyway?"

"Well, you were there. He wasn't sure the police would believe that he made that story up about Clement's other subs, the ones that Clement killed. He didn't want them to find the videos of Mr. Holmes. Because his, ah, rivalry over Mr. Holmes was well known."

John nodded, rubbing the edge of the envelope over in his pocket.

"One-sided rivalry. I'm sure Mr. Holmes never knew of it." Or if he had, he wouldn't have understood it, or cared. Sherlock didn't understand jealousy at all, in his experience.   Which, he supposed, was just as well. "I wondered who deleted the videos from my mobile."

Veere looked blank. "But Jason didn't do that. He didn't delete anything from your mobile, I mean. He told me he did look at it, though. The videos on your mobile were from Clement's assistant, as I told you at the time. This thumb drive has everything from Clement's private server in Thingvellir."

"Well, someone deleted them. I can't believe it wasn't Jason. But it doesn't matter now. What else is in the envelope?"

Veere stood to go. "We've done you what I hoped was a favour, in return for what you did for Jason and for me. I know you didn't want money, and it's not that. And I understand that Jason and I have . . . unpleasant associations for you now. But if I may be so bold ---"

"Be careful."

"Yes, sir. There is a slave auction. In November. I have nominated you, under your alias of course for your privacy's sake. And paid the premium. You are free to bid on any contract you like. Jason and I have . . ."

"What have you and Jason done?"

"We've undertaken to supply your fee. You are a very gifted dom, sir. You deserve to be served by someone who can take care of you properly."

# # #

Veere stood before him, head down, cheeks visibly flushed. John remembered well how very smooth and fine the man's skin felt beneath his hand. He clenched his teeth.

"No. I can't accept it. Not even as a gift."

"Believe me, sir, when we first met and I told you that money was no object, I meant it. Forgive me, but the sum in question is nothing at all to me. Or to Jason. If you decide to withdraw from the auction, just send word to the email address in the envelope. It is encrypted. No one will ever know it is you."

"I've just told you -- I'm getting married."

Veere gave him a knowing, desirous look before looking respectfully away. "Yes, sir."

"And you could have sent these videos directly to Mr. Holmes."

"Perhaps. But you, sir, are the person to make that decision. Good luck, sir. We would be honoured to serve you again, sir, under any circumstances that would be acceptable to you."

John wavered. His fingers clenched, remembering the feel of a steel chain between his fingers, and the look of Jason's skin as he tore the clamps free. Not as pale and flawless as he pictured Sherlock's skin to be. These chains were pulling on him now, so readily.

He needed to get a grip.

"Goodbye, Veere," he said with cold formality. He did not extend his hand. Nor did he return the envelope. "Don't come to me again."

He watched Veere go. While he finished his pint, he fidgeted with the black envelope, but didn't open it. Then he pushed it carefully into his innermost coat pocket and went out into the street.

It was raining, and he had forgotten to bring an umbrella. Swearing, he marched home. He was careful not to put his hands in his pockets and they were dripping wet and frozen by the time he opened the door to the flat.

He didn't want to ruin what was in that envelope.

 


	14. Chapter Fourteen: Through a Glass, Darkly

Chapter Fourteen: Through a Glass, Darkly

 

Sherlock stayed in his solitary seat in the shadows at the at the back of John's local, the Anchor, and watched John's retreat. Everything in the set of his shoulders and angle of his head signaled that John was angry. Very angry.

He clutched his empty half-pint. He had meant to find John here, away from his flat. But then he had had a very great shock, one that he couldn't understand in the least. He felt as though he had taken a blow to the head, every bit as hard as the Serbians had ever delivered. His ears were ringing and for a minute everything around him swayed.

Edwin Veere had approached John Watson, deferentially yet familiarly.   Edwin Veere had spoken to John alone for some minutes.

Sherlock knew who Edwin Veere was, of course. Veere was the close friend and would-be partner of Jason Kilbraith. Both men were well known and sought after submissives in the tight BDSM circles that Sherlock had once traveled in. For a time.   Jason had notoriously pursued Guy Clement, without success, for almost two years, if his memory served. After Serbia and Devil's Town, it didn't serve as well as it used to, and sometimes played tricks on him.

But looking back, he supposed it had been obvious that Jason was powerfully jealous of his own relationship with Clement. He smiled a tight sort of smile at the folly of that.

# # #

It had been a long time since he had thought about that time in his life. John Watson, solider and doctor, honourable, good, strong, and decent, had changed everything for him. He hadn't thought to ever want, or need, to go back to that life again.

Except that it seemed to Sherlock, a slow dawning that had finally broken into his mind and heart like a thief, that John Watson was meant to be his dom.

He had once, for a single week, breathlessly tried to provoke a response in John. He had a crop specially made to be the perfect weight in John's hand. John had broad shoulders, strong arms, and steady, capable, but small hands. John's left shoulder was always a little stiff from the bullet he had taken. All this Sherlock had cherished and taken into careful account, to the limits of his skill.   Some of the final touches on the crop he had sewn with his own hands.

He had deliberately, shamelessly shown himself off about the flat, his shirt unbuttoned much farther than usual, trying to display his neck, which other doms had craved to collar.   He had let himself fall into something like a delirious dream, it had felt almost like he was drugged. He had nursed a fantasy that John would see, would want to collar him, would take up the beautiful crop and show him the way.

So many things about John had led him to wish -- not hope, he never let himself get that far -- that John might be capable of this. In so many ways he had already proved that he would be the perfect master. A true and proper dominant --- one that he never found, until John --- guided and protected his submissive. This was true whether the relationship was limited to master and slave, or ventured into the unknown regions of friends and lovers.

But John had been oblivious to the last.

And then Sherlock had taken the Fall.

# # #

No, John hadn't responded at all to his undoubtedly clumsy attempts to drawn his attention, to make him see him as a sub.

John clearly didn't have any experience in the D/s world. So he had thought.

And he had also believed that it had been truly self-defeating, to have offered himself in that way to John Watson. His overtures were as unreadable to John as ancient Sanskrit --- although such gestures would have been instantly understood by a dom of any experience.

It had seemed a small price to pay, shutting the door on his former life completely. After Clement, anyway, he thought he had gone as far down that path as he was ever meant to go.   Too far, even. He knew he always went too far.

This was one of the things that drove John away, to his safe, ordinary new life with Mary Morstan.

# # #

Sherlock knew he had the best of John that he was ever going to have how. He had John's friendship. He had John's guidance. He had John's protection. In a way, without ever a word about it passing between them, John was already his dom in all the ways that he was capable of being.

And so, it was his duty to submit to John's will regarding what pleased him, what made him happy. Even if it hurt. Maybe especially if it hurt. Because he finally understood, now, how much he had hurt John Watson by letting him believe him dead for two long years.  John's mental state had been so fragile after his return, the kidnapping on Bonfire Night, and his belief that they were going to die in the Parliament bomb train, that he knew John had been forced to resort to medication to keep his PTSD under tenuous control. And the "spring wedding" had been quietly pushed to August, which Sherlock could only presume was due to John's mental health.

He had done everything he could to prove to John that nothing was more important now than his safety and happiness. He had willingly cut back on cases to give John the space and time to recover, which to his great relief, he had.   He had forged a friendship with Mary, which had been surprisingly easy and even rewarding. Mary was clever, and while she could be boring, she was less so than most other persons he considered friends. Everyone was, excepting John.

John was never boring, although as the wedding drew closer it seemed to him that he was deliberately trying to be.

# # #

How wrong he was. John wasn't boring at all. While his soon-to-be-wife was out for the evening, John Watson was having a clandestine meeting with one of the most accomplished and celebrated submissives in London. Still waters certainly ran deep.

Yet John hadn't seemed pleased with Veere. To the contrary. He had frowned at Veere in a way that Sherlock could see from across the room meant that he was getting angry, and Veere had taken as a rebuke. He almost trembled himself in uneasy sympathy.

He didn't have to hear what had passed between Edwin Veere and John to perceive the meaning behind the deferential manner in Veere's posture, in his trembling at John's displeasure, in John's firm rejection and cool dismissal.

Sherlock had been wrong about people in his life before. Moriarty, for example, he had underestimated. He was still uncertain that he had finally, fully defeated the spider in his web. Something kept plucking at those silken threats. Clement, ultimately, he had underestimated too.

But he had never thought he could be wrong about John Watson.

If he had held his image of John Watson in a specially built pavilion in his mind palace, tonight's events had smashed the doors down, broken the windows, and set the place on fire.

The truth was that John Watson knew very well what it was to be a dom.

He just didn't want, or need, Sherlock Holmes to be his submissive.

He had been evaluated after all, and found unworthy. Even John's decision to stay with Mary and marry her after his return -- a decision based on loyalty, gratitude, and love for that woman, who had "completely turned his life around" -- had not felt such a complete and utter rejection as this.

He bit his lip to prevent stupid tears from overflowing.

After he was sure he was mostly composed, Sherlock stalked out into the pouring rain and walked, directionless, through dark London streets.

# # #

He waited until John actually went through with the wedding. He even allowed a spark of hope to burn in his breast.

After seeing him with Veere, he constantly expected that John would break it off.   Mary was a perfectly fine woman, and she filled a certain need in John, he could understand it in theory even though he had the greatest difficulty understanding it in actual application to John Watson, who he knew to be brave, kind, honourable but also adventuresome, dangerous, and even deadly.

He also apparently had certain specific appetites that he doubted very much that Mary Morstan could satisfy, if she could even guess at such things.

Now he was more certain than ever that John couldn't be willing to just settle for safe, comfortable, bland domesticity. Could he?

# # #

They continued with dancing lessons until the day before the wedding.

"It's your turn to lead, John," he had said, trying not to sound provocative. But he meant it anyway.

"I suppose it is," John had confidently led him to the tune of the waltz he had written.

It had too many minor notes, was too bittersweet to be really proper for a wedding song, he knew that, or course. But he had attended more than a few wedding receptions in his time and he knew that nobody would be watching him play or even listening, particularly. All eyes would be on the radiant bride and groom. People were at their most unobservant at a wedding reception, especially where there was an open bar.

And so, he deliberately poured his heart and soul into John and Mary's waltz, knowing no one would know the difference.

# # #

It was playing with fire to let John hold him like this, firm and sure in his arms, letting him push him down into the tricky traditional dip, a gesture of complete trust that John wouldn't let him fall.

And he didn't.

He thought, or maybe it was wishful thinking, that he felt John's eyes on his throat as he leaned back, nearly limp in John's arms, relishing the feel of being totally under John's control.

Sherlock leaned much farther back than was strictly necessary, dizzy with longing.

"I don't think you'll be needing any more lessons, John," he said breathlessly. He couldn't look John in the face. He couldn't let him see his fear of loss, his raw feeling of rejection. All his hopeless, helpless feelings that he barely understood himself.

"I think I probably do," John said, surprising him, "but we're out of time. Wedding's tomorrow."

They stood there like that for a minute, and he did look into John's dear face, and thought he saw reflected back something of what he felt. But it might have been a trick of the light.

Neither said anything more, though, and John went home to Mary, and the next day he married her.  

Sherlock thought he had made something of a disaster of his painstakingly written best man's speech, in which he declared in no uncertain terms that John Watson was the most important person in his life and the most noble, brave and good man he had ever had the good fortune to call his friend. He thought he made it extremely clear, the unworthiness he felt for this man, and the fact that he had been lost, and that it was John, always John, who saved his life and kept him right.

His guide, his protector, his friend.

Who would never, ever, be his lover now.

The final blow came when he finally laid eyes on Major James Sholto, whose near-murder he barely solved before the reception was over, but it had been John who saved Sholto's life, of course. It had not been a night when his wits had been at their sharpest.

Sholto. Another man John had apparently had high regard for, and perhaps something more than regard. Sholto's moody looks at the wedding had of course been down to his secret, near-fatal stab wound. But the man had still seemed to Sherlock full of a pain that was more than physical. He felt it too. Another proof that John was far from indifferent to feelings more than friendship with men, despite his protestations. Another rejection, and another confirmation. John didn't want, or need, such things from Sherlock Holmes.

And so, in the end, he even made a solemn pledge of fealty to Mary, which was only proper because John had chosen her, and John was always right.

Also, she was the mother of John's child.

He vowed to be there for them, always. He even meant it.

# # #

Once John and Mary were safely away on their honeymoon, Sherlock locked himself away in 221b for a few days, letting the silence seep into his skin.

It made him ludicrously frustrated, even angry, when John persisted in following his comments on the blog when he was supposed to be deep in marital bliss of the heterosexual, vanilla kind with his wife.

Why couldn't John leave him in peace now, let him get used to the fact that he was quite alone again?

On the fifth day, he opened the black envelope that had been sent to his secret postal box, one he kept for such communications.

Inside the envelope were the prospectus and papers necessary for him to enter this year's slave auction. He was curious who had put his name forward. Guy Clement, obviously, was no longer in a position to take part in this event. But everyone knew of his dramatic return to London from the dead.

He imagined, without vanity, that if he were to offer himself this year it would be a sensation.

# # #

After Serbia, he hadn't thought he could ever submit himself to pain again. Now, having been abandoned by John, there wasn't anything else left, really. He was already in pain that wasn't going to end. He told himself he might as well put himself in the hands of a dom who might not be completely incapable of comprehending his simplest needs, at least at a superficial level. Which was all he wanted.

Casual scenes were not for him. He could never get in the proper space in his head with a stranger. The very idea was nauseating. No, although his experience was actually somewhat limited in terms of the number and variety of his liaisons, it was also very rarified.   He knew himself well enough to know that throwing himself at amateurs just because he had been rejected, cast out of heaven in fact, was like mainlining badly cut street heroin. A cheap, temporary fix, with a high and possibly fatal price to pay later.

Anyway, the auction was not until November. He could withdraw at any time up until a week beforehand, as could the doms. He glanced over the list.

There were only ten doms this year, and he was familiar with them all although no photographs were ever provided for the doms. One or possibly two of them might do. He felt no attraction to either, of course. That was a given.

There was one unfamiliar name. That was in itself mildly interesting.

John Robert Richards.

A physician.

His lips twitched. Perhaps the universe had some surprises left for him, after all.

He put the prospectus away in the bureau in his bedroom. Next to John's old chair, which he had pulled out of the sitting room to keep next to his bed. It comforted him to sleep next to it. John would never be back in 221b, not like before. Someday soon he would get rid of it altogether, he promised himself.

There was a troublesome throb in his groin. It had been building since he saw Edwin Veere and John Watson together. His ruined mind palace threatened to combust in the face of intrusive thoughts of Veere servicing John, John holding him down, perhaps tying him up --

The pain of it was exquisitely hot and bitter. He let his hand slide slowly over his cock, lightly, the barest whisper of stimulation, nothing more. He wouldn't allow himself to spill over. Even when he imagined himself in Veere's place -- what he speculated had been Veere's place -- he would be more disciplined than Veere would have been, that luxurious creature who loved to serve and loved to be praised. He wouldn't let himself come. Especially not now. The pressure of pent up frustration boiled there, his balls flaming, his cock stiff with blood, his head purple and shining. He examined his cock dispassionately, imagining what John would think to see him like this, needy and craving and yet, capable of restraint. Would John be impressed, find him extraordinary? His cock throbbed at the thought, and he took a deep breath and took his hand away.

He lay there, quivering, for a long time, his hands fisted in the sheets. Perhaps tomorrow he would look for his crop, the special one, and let himself feel it.

His face burned.

# # #

In the morning, Sherlock made a decision.   He decided not to make any decision yet about the auction. But the mere possibility would serve to give him something to focus on while he tried to accustom himself to his new, solitary life.

That, and Charles Augustus Magnussen.


	15. Chapter Fifteen: Masks

 

  
27 November

  
John Watson was fully aware that his brains could never be a match for Sherlock Holmes'.

True, he good-naturedly endured Sherlock's barbs against his intelligence -- more frequent in the beginning of their friendship, it was true, than since his return -- without actually taking them to heart. He had flaws, many in fact, but lack of innate intelligence wasn't one of them. He had earned solid marks throughout uni and medical college, passed his boards without difficulty, and had life experience honed in war. He usually trusted his own judgment.

Until now. After Mary shot Sherlock, he was no longer sure he would be able to do that, ever again. And knowing even Sherlock had been deceived by his lying wife had rocked his formerly unshakeable confidence in Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock was doing surprisingly well, and due to be released tomorrow. Then, finally, Sherlock would perhaps be willing to talk to him. Many a long hour he had spent at Sherlock's bedside, sending up constant but inartuculate prayers for his recovery. But Sherlock turned away every question, every half-uttered apology, and every day stoically repeated his admonition to go back home to his pregnant wife, and leave him in peace.

John, undeterred in the slightest, didn't actually do that. Instead, he had coolly informed Mary that he was going back to 221B temporarily.

"Sherlock needs me now more than ever," he had told her. He hoped that it was actually true despite Sherlock's constant efforts to force him to return to Mary.

"I need you. We need you," Mary retorted.

His bags, as Billy had observed, were easy to pack.

And so he was alone again tonight in 221B. He was glad of the solitude, which was truly ironic because a big part of his decision to marry Mary was down to the realisation that after Sherlock's death, he just couldn't go on much longer alone. Now, being alone gave him the space he needed to think properly.

( _Alone is what I have. Alone protects me.)_

He didn't turn to drink. He felt a need to keep himself sharp. He made tea and sank into his chair, turning over various items of evidence, over and over, trying to make sense of what Sherlock had told him:

_Mary hadn't meant to kill him._

_Mary had actually saved his life with her surgically aimed bullet._

_He could trust Mary_.

# # #

And yet. And yet.

He replayed the episodes in the game with Moriarty. So many assassins. The Golem. The assassins of the Black Lotus Tong. Moriarty's unseen snipers at the swimming pool. Not to mention the assassins threatening them in Baker Street, assassins that Mycroft had taken the trouble to try to brief him on, even showing him their files.

Moriarty's assassins that would have blown his brains out, blown Lestrade's brains out, blown Mrs. Hudson's brains out, if Sherlock hadn't jumped, he now finally understood.

He was fairly certain that as much danger as he had braved in Afghanistan-- to the point of taking a bullet-- there had actually been more guns after him in London since he started investigating crimes with Sherlock Holmes.

Now he knew that his wife had a place on this deadly list. Mary, or A.G.R.A (he still didn't know her real name) was an international assassin. She wasn't even English, according to Sherlock. She was notorious enough to have drawn the attention of Charles Augustus Magnussen.

Like Mycroft and Moriarty, Charles Augustus Magnussen played a sort of chess, with governments and magnates as the pawns.

# # #

John was a terrible liar, generally. He knew that. Sherlock claimed to always know when he was lying. But long, sporadic hours of peace and even boredom in Afghanistan had to be filled somehow, and in his unit it was with poker. And so it was there that John had developed his poker face, such as it was. Better than most people thought.

Also, an appreciation of the calculation of risk and odds in a hand.

His tea was cold. _Fuck it_ , he thought, and went for the brandy.

What were the odds, after all that had happened to him and to Sherlock, that Mary, an actual assassin, who was not actually British, should just happen to start working as a nurse at his obscure London clinic, should just happen to start commenting on his blog and inviting him for drinks and generally insinuating herself into his utterly drab, depressing life after Sherlock Holmes.

What were the odds that an international assassin should just happen to get pregnant when to the best of his recollection they hadn't actually slept together above half a dozen times in the months since Sherlock's return, and on those occasions, he had worn a condom.

"You can trust Mary," Sherlock said, with a poignant sincerity that would have broken his heart if he hadn't been literally seeing red from fury.

What were the odds?

As Rick said to Sam in Casablanca, " _Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."_

  
# # #

  
Sherlock scowled and pulled off his hospital gown for what he intended to be the last time.

After his collapse, he had worked very hard at his recovery, taken his prescribed medications, eaten steadily and without complaining, titrating down on the morphine (the hardest part), applying himself with a vengeance to his respiratory and physical therapy. It felt good to get his body back under his control, the only thing in his life that felt like it was still within his control. He had no doubt that he was substantially healthier and stronger today than he had been in over three years.

Now, more than ever, he could not afford to be weak.

"You know," the orderly said, "there is a cream that can make them less prominent. The scars on your back. If you want."

"No."

He was proud that he had succesfully hidden the scars from John, all this time while he had been in hospital, mostly by staying awake when John was at his bedside -- which was difficult since John could rarely be induced to leave -- so that he wouldn't inadvertently roll over and give John a view of his scarred flesh when the gown fell open. After the bullet wound in his chest was mostly healed, he was allowed to wear T-shirts again when they weren't poking and prodding him for endless tests, which made things easier.

He had thought about it, though. It had taken him a while to understand his impulse to keep the scars a secret from John. It was more than his ironclad sense of decorum in covering his body from John's view. He understood now what he had done to John in making him believe he was dead and buried, a suicide, a freak, a fraud and a disgrace.

He had nearly broken him.

The very last thing in the world he wanted now was for John to forced to feel the slightest pity or guilt for the hardship he had endured for his sake. Like the other, far less brutal pains he had endured as a submissive, he had deserved the pain, and the scars that went with it. He still deserved it. What he didn't deserve was John Watson's pity.

There was no punishment severe enough to ameliorate his crime in nearly breaking John Watson.

The scars would have to do.

# # #

The Christmas lights in Baker Street were a somewhat bittersweet distraction from wishing Sherlock was home. He wasn't sure how long he had been standing there, looking at the lights and the passing holiday folk dwindle and finally disappear, leaving only the occasional passing car for company, when his phone flashed and vibrated. He was tempted to gnore it. At this time of night, it was likely Mary. She rarely demanded that he come home, because she apparently had a low tolerance for the word "no" -- but at regular intervals she asked about Sherlock's recovery. He kept his responses brief, not more than one or two words, and usually not for hours, but he always answered. He didn't like to think what might happen next if he started ignoring Mary altogether.

Maybe, he thought, it was Sherlock. He closed his eyes at the unlikeliness of that. Sherlock had stopped phoning and texting him altogether since the wedding. With a sigh, he looked at the screen.

It was an email notification. He clicked, and an animated black envelope appeared on the screen. It opened when he tapped it.

It was an invitation to a preview party the night before the slave auction. With everything that had happened -- Sherlock getting shot, and Mary being, well, very nearly Sherlock's murderer -- he had forgotten all about the auction. Nearly.

He tried and failed to stop himself thinking of the lost video of Sherlock on display at the past auction.

 _You deserve to be served by someone who can take care of you_ _properly._

He didn't know what he deserved anymore. He just knew that he didn't want what he had, and wanted what he couldn't have.

 _Press "Yes" to accept_.

His finger hovered over the invitation.

 _Maybe_ , _just maybe, someone wanted a few one night stands._

He hit "Yes."

The virtual invitation unfolded again to reveal a list of names. He was to choose his preferred sub, and two alternates. There was a menu for selecting the desired implements in a private room. There was a list of the prospective subs. With photographs. All but one of them might as well have been invisible. His hand trembled but he didn't hesitate before pressing the photograph next to the initials "S.H."

He chose no alternates.

All or nothing.

# # #

The party was in a period manor house in Kent, discreet and very private behind tall walls and a formidable wrought iron gate manned by truly serious security men. John showed his teeth like a wolf when he was required to give up his pistol for the night. He had some idea, or fantasy, of needing his gun tonight. Possibly to fend off other doms desiring Sherlock's services. He had set a record the last time, Veere had said.

There were formalities to be got through in the first forty-five minutes, for the respect of the house. John complied mechanically, but with precision, with his eye on his watch. A few doms here had been at the house party in Thingvellir, and they met each other's eyes warily. And Jason Kilbraith was here too, pointedly not meeting John's eyes.

Everyone knew what had happened to Clement. There were whispers among those who had reason to know that it was completely out of character for Jason Kilbraith to have delivered such a violent assault upon Clement. And that Dr. Richards, as John was known, was the only other person left behind in the house that morning. John saw the gleam of suspicion in their eyes, darting from him to Jason. He wondered if somehow this whole affair was an elaborate trap, perhaps revenge by Guy Clement. Or perhaps, by someone else.

Even Mary.

If it was a trap, he was ready. One of the crops in his bag was weighted with lead. It could fell a man. After Guy Clement, he didn't trust any of the men in this circle. And after Mary, he didn't trust anyone at all, save one.

# # #

A sub in a close-fitting dark suit appeared at his side at precisely ten o'clock.

"If you will please allow me, Doctor Richards, to show you your room."

The house's membership was exclusive and drawn from the most glittering titled families and highly-placed corporate and government figures in England. John was assured that the rooms were soundproof and secure, no hidden webcams or other measures to violate the member's total privacy. He put the odds of this being true at somewhere around fifty percent, given his experience.

The sub offered John a slim briefcase, but he had his black bag in one hand and wanted to keep the other free.

"You carry it."

He followed the sub up a flight of stairs and down a long corridor. There were several doors, and the sub opened one and waited for John to enter first.

"Everything according to your direction, sir. If there is anything you wish to add or change, I am at your service."

The room was on two levels. There was a slightly raised platform with a comfortable chair, and a table for laying out his implements. On the carpeted floor opposite was a sturdy wooden chair and a music stand. There was a bed against the wall.

The briefcase contained a two tablets. John turned them on and experimented that they were working as expected. One he put on the music stand, and the other on the table at his side.

"Demonstrate the lights now."

John sat in the chair on the platform and the sub turned out the lights. For a moment they were in total darkness, but a spotlight shone down in the vicinity of John's lap, where his hands were folded.

"Smaller," John said, and the beam of light tightened to a small circle highlighting his hands. The sub gave John the remote and made a short bow.

"May I be of any further service, Sir?" The sub's voice had just a hint of invitation, of desire.

"Has he got the envelope?"

"Yes, sir. I delivered it myself. And here is the list of your companion's stipulations, sir, for your review. I apologise that they were not given you earlier. There was a last minute change. If the stipulations are not acceptable, just ring for me and another companion will join you for the evening, if you wish."

"Very good." John opened his bag and withdrew a blindfold. "Now give him this, and tell him to put it on. He is to do it himself, I don't want anyone else to put it on him, do you understand? But make sure he's done it up properly. If he's tried to make a gap to see through, I'll know. After he's put it on, bring him in and leave him inside."

# # #

The wait gave him a pleasurable frisson of danger-laced anticipation. He could hardly believe he was doing this. He wanted to believe that he knew how this was going to go down. But with Sherlock, things were never predicable.

By now Sherlock would have read out his instructions, which included the standard direction not to speak unless expressly invited to do so, and that he be prepared to comply with certain hand signals, the meaning of which was explained in a clear illustrated chart.

He imagined Sherlock would already be frustrated by this, thinking of ways he would provoke him to breach these protocols. The few episodes on the lost videos showed Sherlock, unsurprisingly, as a slyly defiant sub with Guy Clement, verbose when he should be quiet, silent when Clement had wanted him to speak.

He glanced at the typewritten card that contained Sherlock's "stipulations," or limitations during their session. He hadn't given that much thought, imagining they would be similar to what he had seen in Sherlock's videos with Clement. He was only partly right.

"No penetrative sex acts, excepting I will perform fellatio if ordered. I will not be brought to climax. Safewords: Yellow = approaching limit, red = stop. With respect, SH."

Below this was a scrawled note in blue ink that he recognised as Sherlock's hand:

_"I am regrettably recovering from a rather inconvenient injury, and while I am feeling fit, I am temporarily exempting myself from intense physical discipline, bondage or confinement. I expect to be fully recovered by the New Year. If this is not agreeable, please return this card to the house. SH."_

His knees gave a shameful hesitant wobble at this, and he sat in his chair.

What was driving Sherlock to seek pain and punishment while he was not yet completely healed from Mary's bullet? The answer was obvious, even to him. His face burned with guilt and shame, so much that he didn't think he could contain or conceal it. He put on his bespoke black leather half-mask. The mask would have to serve until he could pull himself together properly.

Until this moment, he hadn't known how much he needed to impress Sherlock.

# # #

He took off his wedding ring and put it in his pocket, and pulled on black leather gloves. The door opened. Sherlock, blindfolded, stood on the threshold.

John dismissed the sub, and shut and locked the door.

Sherlock took a single tentative step into the room, his head slightly cocked. Without the benefit of sight, he was trying to gather data by listening. It was a too-familiar gesture from long waits together in dark places.

He gently placed a hand on Sherlock's forearm and propelled him a few feet into the room. Then he stepped back with firm footsteps, giving Sherlock complete space, and circled him where he stood. There was indeed something different in his posture from everyday life, Not deferential, more as though he were steeling himself. His gloved fist clenched and he wondered if Sherlock could hear it, and cursed himself for lacking control. To cover, he reached out and ran a finger around the blindfold, making sure it was tight.

# # #

He had bought a new cologne just for the occasion, expensive and as unlike himself as he could imagine. Sherlock's nostrils flared as he inhaled, cataloging the scent. He had put temporary dye in his hair, too, making it nearly black, to hopefully prevent him being readily recognised.

He dimmed the lights and guided Sherlock to the chair, and pressed down on his shoulder to indicate he should sit. Then he removed Sherlock's blindfold and stepped back to his own chair.

He typed on his tablet.

" _Are you certain you feel strong enough? Type your answer_."

The only light in the room now was the glow of the tablets. Sherlock took up his tablet and typed. " _Yes, Sir._ "

" _Why not wait until you are completely healed?"_

" _I prefer not to answer that, Sir. I take full responsibility for safewording. And I understand you are a doctor, Dr. Richards._ "

John's heart pounded so hard he imagined that Sherlock had to hear it. Sherlock Holmes had let him down once, in the most spectacularly devastating manner conceivable: leaving him behind, letting him think him dead. And he had let Sherlock down, too, in a manner probably equally devastating in its own way.

He was a believer in second and third chances. After Afghanistan, Sherlock Holmes had been his second chance at a new life. He had once thought Mary was his third chance, and the only one he was likely to get. How wrong he had been.

Sherlock was waiting, still and silent as he had been ordered. In the dark, he thought he could hear Sherlock's breathing, gentle and regular. Maybe it was just force of habit after long weeks of sitting at Sherlock's bedside, listening to that reassuring sound, the most important sound in the world.

Time for a leap of faith.

Although Sherlock's stipulations nearly tore his heart in two, they at least made it plausible that he should not immediately start by putting Sherlock through a challenging scene. Because of the probability that despite the alleged ultra-privacy of these rooms, someone was watching and filming with hidden cameras, he wanted this encounter to look exactly as it should. He hit the remote that put a narrow spotlight on his hands, and gave the sign for Sherlock to approach. Sherlock stood and took two precise steps forward to the edge of the platform.

He gestured for Sherlock to come closer still, and kneel. Sherlock sank fluidly to his knees and tried to catch a glimpse of his masked face in the dark before casting his eyes deferentially down. John grasped his chin in his gloved hand, so that Sherlock would know he was under his control, the first time he had ever touched Sherlock in this way.

Slight tension signaled that Sherlock wasn't as prepared to be handled as he claimed to be.

Sherlock kneeling at his feet gave him easy access to whisper in Sherlock's ear. Holding Sherlock's chin firmly, he leaned close to the shell of his ear and whispered, very softly:

"Mary is going to try to kill you again, Sherlock. She's going to try to kill me too, but not yet. I figure you already know this. Say 'Yes, Sir,' if I'm right."

Sherlock flinched as if by electric shock. He reluctantly released his hand so that Sherlock could answer. Sherlock swallowed hard, trying to compose himself.

"Yes, Sir," Sherlock whispered.

"Louder."

"Yes, Sir," Sherlock said with greater volume. A slight quaver.

"You don't actually know me yet, Sherlock, so I'll be clear. I believe in trust before submission. In the past you may have been under the impression that you were cleverer than everyone else, and could control a scene, or even your Dom. Whatever happened before, whatever you did in the past, is finished."

In the near darkness, Sherlock's alabaster face was ghostly. He wanted to turn up the light, to savour the expressions on Sherlock's face. But this way was better if anyone was trying to film them.

"Do you understand? You may speak."

"Ah. . . yes. Sir. I, I . . . I understand."

"It will be difficult, but I believe it'll be worth it. Or I wouldn't be here. But I also want to be clear that while I will take your . . .ah, ideas, into account -- we are ultimately going to do this my way. Or not at all."

Sherlock nodded. His eyes shone, wide and very bright with what might have been a welling of tears. He bit his lip against the ache. He couldn't crack, not now. Sherlock was breathing hard. Was he trying to control fear? Desire? He very much needed to believe it was the latter.

He took Sherlock's chin in his hand again and stroked the lush lower lip with his gloved thumb, both for show to any watching eyes, and because he had always wanted this. Sherlock leaned into the touch.

"Shhh. It's going to be all right. I promise."

 


	16. Chapter Sixteen: The New Game

Before he could savour the feel of Sherlock's cheek resting lightly against his gloved palm, there was a soft tap at the door.

"Not now." His eyes didn't leave Sherlock's, huge dark pupils engulfing sea-glass.

"It's Jason, sir."

Sherlock tore from his gaze, not before something,-- doubt? fear? hurt?- flickered there. Then he looked down and away. Just as when they were on a case, or anywhere, really, John couldn't tell what Sherlock was really thinking. He gave away almost nothing of himself.

 _Yet_ , John promised himself.

He opened the door just enough to see that the man on the other side was indeed Jason Kilbraith. Jason wore a domino mask, a leather harness, and little else.

"What are you doing here? I distinctly told you not to --"

Jason said loudly, "-- Forgive the intrusion, sir, but I saw you in the salon and I couldn't help it. I had to ask you, with respect, if you would please consider me for the auction." His expression was urgent, and Jason obviously wanted to tell John something else but was afraid of being overheard.

"I'm engaged, Jason. But I'm, ah -- pleased that you thought of me," John said formally, leaning in to give him a familiar kiss on the cheek, giving him an opportunity to whisper.

"I heard there is a woman here, sir-- I think she's looking for you. She's asking people about the "new dom, the doctor." I don't think I recognise her, but I wasn't able to get close. I thought I should come to you and tell you."

"Did anyone say anything about me?"

"I don't know. Probably, I should think. Everyone likes to talk about any new parties."

"Can you tell me what she looks like?"

"Don't know, really. Everyone is masked tonight, you see. But she has dark hair, I think. Fit-looking. Not very tall."

John's lips pursed a thin smile.

"Here's what I want you to do, Jason. Wait five minutes, then go find this woman. Say that you are delivering a message from me. Say that I heard she was inquiring after me, and that I invite her to my room. With my compliments. Then bring her here. Can you do that for me?"

Jason nodded. "Of course, sir. But -- do you think she's dangerous?"

John considered. The Chinese sense of obligation for the life of one whose life you have saved, something that always had weighed on him in Afghanistan, seemed to weigh on him now. On the other hand, Jason had saved him once, too, letting him get to that Glock before Clement. And there was the night in Hampstead.

They had a bond, of sorts, he and Jason, which continued to present itself to him in surprising ways.

He sensed Sherlock's restless energy behind him, could practically feel the wave of emotion flowing between them, breaking against his turned back.

"If it's who I think it is, yes. She could be-- dangerous. Very dangerous. But not to you, if you stick to what I told you. Don't draw the slightest attention to yourself. Just bring her here, and leave."

# # #

Sherlock listened without giving any sign of doing so, and allowed his submissive composure to envelop him like icy armour. He was very good at this, and so he was able to shield himself in part from the dark wave of disappointment that crashed and shook him as he realised that, of course, John wasn't here for him tonight at all.

John was here solely because it was part of some sort of game with Mary. The shock if it knocked the air from his lungs. His cheeks burned as if he had been slapped.

Nothing in the world could be more humiliating than for John to see that he had thought tonight was for real. He scolded himself for his folly and weakness. After all, John had made it perfectly clear that he was uninterested in him as a sub, and that he had enjoyed the services of several other partners, particularly Jason, who evidently suited his personal tastes and desires. This thought must be urgently imprisoned behind a locked door of his mind palace. One he would never unlock again after tonight.

He swallowed hard against the fresh image of Jason presenting himself eagerly to John, and John leaning in to kiss him, so softly. And then he pushed that into the forbidden room as well and turned the key.

At least he could be sure that John had not arranged this little scene with Jason for his benefit, to humiliate him and show him his place, perhaps as a final recompense for the Fall. Even with his mind compromised by this unexpected turn of affairs, it was obvious that John had not expected Jason's visit. And he was almost certain John would not deliberately hurt him in that way.

Almost.

# # #

The mysterious masked woman, however, he was convinced must be Mary in disguise. It was obvious that John thought so, too. Mary was as skilled as Moriarty in the art of disguise, perhaps even better.

He considered the narrow and probably inaccurate facts presently in his possession to see if he could discern what it was that Mary really wanted. Perhaps nothing more than what John said: that he and John should both be dead.

He knew where he stood now, with one glaring omission-- he was ignorant of the rules of this new game. It was, he had to admit, a game he knew far, far less about than he had thought he had. Perhaps it wasn't even a new game at all, but one that he had been blind to since the very first night he met Mary Morstan.

 _Mary is going to try to kill you again . . . she's going to try to kill me too, but not yet. . . I want to be clear that while I will take your . . . ideas, into account -- we are ultimately going to do this my way. Or not at all._ John meant the game with Mary. This game was going to be different to the game with Moriarty.

And John wanted him to know it.

He bit his lip hard to force his expression back into a cool mask, bowed his head so that John might not see his flaming cheeks. He could feel John's gaze on him still, though, and so he closed his eyes. John mustn't see his pain and confusion.

His lower lip still tingled where John had briefly, so very briefly, stroked it with his gloved thumb. He decided he would allow himself to keep this sliver of memory, as though he were anything but helpless to do otherwise. He would not lock it away in a forbidden room. He put the precious fragment instead in his room of treasures, which was quite small but filled with his store of cherished moments in his life with John Watson.

Even though he knew that John must suspect hidden webcams (it was true, there was no true privacy where the auction was concerned, and the hidden cameras were purportedly for the subs' protection), and had wanted this to look as it should between a dom and his new sub, he could still keep this memory and pretend it was real.

# # #

John brought out a domino mask and a full head mask. He put on the domino mask, which transformed him into someone strange. Someone cold and hard. Someone, he imagined John thought, like Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock inspected his mask. It was helmet-style, encasing the entire head, with zips over the eyes and mouth, holes for the nostrils, and a snug collar at the neck. No one would be able to recognise him with his eyes and mouth completely covered.

"Do you think you can wear this for a short time, say half an hour?" John's voice was unexpectedly gentle.

Sherlock generally hated such masks, the interference with his senses and the sense of confinement was claustrophobia-inducing and often put him on the edge of losing control. He usually deployed certain fascinating tactics to distract his dom from actually putting it on.

Knowing this, Guy Clement had particularly enjoyed making him wear one.

But John didn't know that. And he could endure it for half an hour, or even longer, if John was there, if John wanted him to, he told himself.  The fact that John had momentarily deceived him did not lessen the bedrock of his unshakable trust in his friend.  
He nodded his assent with more confidence than he actually felt.

John pulled the mask over Sherlock's head with gentle, deft hands, careful not to catch his curling hair or the delicate skin of his throat and lips in the zips. Before he could settle into the feeling of intense sensory deprivation, the rush of blood roaring in his ears, or try to centre himself, John hooked a leash to the ring of the collar and carefully adjusted the zip at his mouth to allow him to breathe a bit more freely.

His heart gave an irregular jump. Guy Clement liked to make him wonder if it would be his fingers, or a toy, or his cock that would be pressed through that opening. He got very good at assessing how widely Clement was pulling the zips so as to correctly predict what would happen. He hated surprises. Especially Guy Clement's surprises.

But John Watson surprised him constantly, and never more than tonight, and despite the lacerations of his disappointment, he didn't actually hate the feeling now. Far from it. His nerves hummed. His mind trembled.

He wondered if John would make him disrobe now, wear a harness like the others. The flesh of his back, criss-crossed with angry scars, twitched in revulsion. Anything but that.  
  


John paused. Then, his gloved fingers fumbled at Sherlock's shirt, unbuttoning the top button, then another. He tried to control his breathing, smooth and deep. John arranged his shirt collar, parting it to accommodate the expanse of black leather encircling his throat. His pulse pounded against the strap of the collar. He thought, or maybe imagined, that John's gloved fingertip lingered at the hollow of his throat just a fraction longer than necessary to adjust his shirt.

"Come." John tugged the leash, and Sherlock blindly followed.

# # #

With his ears enclosed in the mask, sound was almost entirely muffled, but John's firm footsteps guided him along as he was pulled by the leash. The disorientation of the mask, and deeper disorientation of the abrupt transition from reality into the realm of his deepest fantasies, even on false pretenses, made him dizzy and slightly sick. He concentrated hard on trying to perceived their surroundings.

They seemed, he thought, to be walking down a long corridor. He braced himself to be pulled by the leash through the gathered crowed of the auction party, imagining their eyes on him, jaded and rapacious, and how would look with John leading him. He felt inordinately proud, and held his head high.

But there did not seem to be any other people here after all-- there were no voices, no warmth of other bodies. But he didn't even consider stopping John to demand to know where they were going, what was really happening, and why.   No matter the reason, for tonight at least, John was his dom. He wanted nothing more in this moment but to feel the embrace of the mask enclosing his face because John had asked him to, the darkness pressing all around him, the tug of the leash that connected him to John.

# # #

Cold air prickled the narrow strip of exposed flesh below the mask. They had left the party, apparently, and were outdoors, perhaps in the gardens.

Now John's hands were on his shoulders, steadying him. He thought for a moment that John was removing the mask, and he readied himself. Since this was a game, he wondered what John expected him to do. Quite likely, John expected him to rebel, to lash out.   And yet he didn't have the slightest impulse to challenge John's authority. He waited for John to reveal what would happen next with unusual calmness.

John abruptly pushed a hard sort of helmet over his masked head, pulled him onto a hard narrow seat between his legs. A motorbike. Then he pulled his arms around his chest, shouting, "Hold on!"

John gunned the bike and they took off at top speed, leaning into rapid twists and turns, the engine roaring. Sherlock wrapped himself tight against John's broad back.

The total darkness and the muffling of sound made it seem as if they were flying, dream-like. But the fact that his crotch was pressed close against John's firm arse as he guided the motorbike, flexing and pressing back against him, was all too real. A hot wave slowly unfurled from the soles of his feet to the top of his scalp, tingling under the tight embrace of the leather. He gasped for breath through the zips.

Sherlock was known for his tremendous control over his erections, able to resist prolonged and even violent stimulations with little discernible response, if he so chose. He bit his lip and willed his cock to obey him now.

So far as he could tell, it wasn't working.

# # #

The motorbike jolted down what felt like a rutted lane, then stopped. John instantly turned to remove Sherlock's helmet without a glance at the bulge straining his trousers.

"You can take off your mask now."

Sherlock removed the mask. Cold, damp night air rushed against his face and helped him discipline his cock. They were in an unpaved lane with tall hedges overshadowing them.

"Follow me."

John hid the bike behind a stone wall surrounding a small, ancient-looking house, perhaps once a gamekeeper's hut on some nearby estate. Like so many properties in Kent, it had been restored to a rather soulless state of newness, with brilliant white plaster and mullioned windows. John retrieved the key from a flower pot, and opened the door.

"I didn't know you and Mary had a country house, John." He failed to suppress the note of sarcasm. So many things, evidently, that he didn't know about John Watson.

John met his eyes, a flicker of grief there, maybe.

"It's hard, isn't it, realising that a terrible secret has been kept from you?" he said softly. Before Sherlock could decide what to say, John turned to the fireplace. It was equipped with an electric grate.

"No smoke," John said, and turned it on. The ruddy glow was soothing, it reminded him of 221b. "Draw the drapes tight," he ordered. "And no lights."

"So I perceive," Sherlock retorted drily, but he obeyed.

John sat in a chair before the fire. Although he had told Sherlock to remove his mask, he hadn't removed his own. His dark eyes reflected back warm glints from the firelight, provoking an answering warmth in Sherlock's lip where he had touched it. But with his face partially concealed, Sherlock couldn't read his expression.

He stood before John, uncertain whether he ought to await further instruction in his role as a sub, or if John intended to drop the pretense now that they were truly alone. Had he simply forgotten the mask, or did it mean he was still in scene? He could just sit on the sofa without waiting for a sign, letting John know that he understood how things were.

Or he could drop to his knees, and show John how things could be.

 


	17. Chapter Seventeen: The Red Cord

The mask was his only clue. True, John had made it clear that this was about handling his murderous wife Mary. But they were alone now, and John still hadn’t taken off his mask.

It was an open invitation for him to respond in kind, he decided. Perhaps John would correct his mistake, further humiliating him. But the dark slow singing in his blood whispered that it didn’t matter. A thing was only humiliating if you let it be. Generally, he didn’t. But John Watson was the only person he really cared about, really needed. No matter the cost. Humiliation was a very small price to pay in relation to the possible reward, no matter how remote. If he hesitated now, John would take off the mask, and the spell would be broken. John was watching him, the mask making it hard to read his expression. But even in the dim glow of the fire he discerned that John’s chest was rising and falling just a touch more rapidly than his still posture warranted.

With deliberate slow grace, Sherlock went down on his knees, his tight trousers straining at the thighs.

“What do you think you’re doing, hmmm?”

That touch of anger that always simmered below the surface gave the little hum a dangerous note that hit Sherlock in the gut and twisted -- not unpleasurably. To the contrary. He wondered if John knew just how often he provoked it just to feel that frisson of danger. Which for Sherlock, was as good, or better, than anything he could ever dream of having from John, and one of the very few emotions he could reliably expect John to unleash. While he always strove to keep his own emotions in severe check, he found the study of John’s emotions, usually quite apparent from the quicksilver expressiveness of his beloved face, endlessly fascinating.

He wasn’t sure he would be able to get the words out, his throat felt so tight. “Ah, showing proper respect.”

But he kept his eyes fixed on John’s, which wasn’t at all respectful. They were gleaming and hot-looking in the firelight. Would John punish him for this boldness?

_(Keep your eyes fixed on me. . .)_

He dropped his gaze with a sigh.

“Aren’t you interested in hearing about Mary?” His voice was flat, harsh.

“You brought me here. It is still at least seven hours until you would be expected to report to the clinic for your shift. If you were worried about time, you would have already started to tell me your plan, so that you could return to your flat” -- he refused to ever call it John’s home, which in his heart would always be 221b -- “Since you do not appear to be concerned for the time, I presume you made arrangements you believed would plausibly account to Mary for your absence overnight while you secretly attended the preview party. And that while you evidently miscalculated, you do not believe that Mary has any means of discovering this house. Which I would find so extremely unlikely as to reduce the persons likely to furnish you with it to a single individual -- my brother. Hence, there is . . .”

He faltered. John’s impassive face behind the mask was unnerving, and what he wanted to say, what he was trying to say, that no, he didn’t want to talk about Mary, he wanted to pretend for a few short hours that this was just about the two of them, even if it wasn’t true, just wouldn’t seem to form on his lips.

“. . . what I meant to say was, under the circumstances, there appears to be more than adequate time to discuss. . . anything you like.”

John’s lips turned up just briefly. But he still didn’t take off the mask. He stood and took a few steps closer until he was standing quite near Sherlock where he knelt before the fire.

“Always so clever, always deducing.”

For the second time tonight, a dull blush rose in his cheeks. He knew, of course he knew, that a showy deduction wasn’t what John wanted right now. But he couldn’t help it. He never could, really. The things he could have said in response to John’s question, better things, truer things, like _No, I don’t want to talk of Mary, ever again, I want you to hold me hard and show me what it feels like to be under your hands_ , crowded his brain, rattling like dice in a cup, which when thrown would decide his fate. Now the magic of the moment was broken.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered.

John stood over him, motionless. He waited. He wanted John to touch him again like had back in the room at the party. He shifted just slightly, suggestively bringing his mouth a fraction closer to the expanse of trouser covering John’s crotch, presenting itself so invitingly. It was going to be impossible to resist testing John’s temperament as a dom. Guy Clement probably would have slapped him and called him a slut for such a trick.

“Anything I like,” John repeated. “I wonder if you can deduce what I’d like?”

# # #

Something in his brain snapped and floated free, not unlike a hit of pure heroin. He noticed he was watching himself from above. With a practiced glide he slid a few inches closer, until his lips could nearly touch the zips of his trousers. He parted his lips and let his breath warm the spot. He was capable of opening the zips with only his lips and teeth, a modest trick any properly trained sub was well able to perform, but none with as much finesse as he had, he had been assured.

The play of light and shadow over the tight fabric showed John’s cock twitch and lengthen. He wanted to nuzzle his face there, inhale and know that scent at last.

He waited.

John grasped his shoulder and held him still, not pushing away, not allowing him closer.

And so, naturally, Sherlock pushed back just a little against his hand, trying to get closer despite John’s restraint.

John didn’t move, just squeezed his shoulder with that strong, capable surgeon’s hand. Squeezed it hard.

“No,” John said.

And there it was at last. He saw himself, kneeling before John, his too-eager mouth seeking, John holding him forcibly back, but with stillness.

John Watson was restraining him.

The blood pumped into his cock like a burst dam. The clockwork of his brain froze as the stars and planets re-aligned.

“I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t deduce. What you’d like.”

“But you want to.” It wasn’t a question and Sherlock basked in the glorious wave of heat and light sparking new patterns in his neural net. John wanted him. Even if he wasn’t allowing himself to show it, he wasn’t in sufficient control of his body to conceal it. Possibly, Sherlock considered, he wanted Sherlock to see, but would deny him the privilege of doing anything to gratify. How, and how much, he would allow himself to have what he wanted was the question. John Watson usually, in his experience, hid what he wanted from himself or if he did know, was determined to deny himself.

“You need more data, Sherlock. Understandable. It’s interesting that for someone who lives on accurate data, that you always underestimate what it means to me when you keep secrets.”

“Secrets?” He was baffled. Was this still all about the Fall and his disappearance, then? Did John intend to punish him now? The criss-cross scars across the flesh of his back flinched and quivered minutely. He had to admit that physical punishment might be the most honest, most pure and true way he could atone for his terrible transgression.

“I’m sorry. That I didn’t tell you.” A tear welled up, trickled down, wetting his collar. He abruptly returned to reality from his euphoric, soaring height. It was just him and John in a strange house, far from 221b, and John hadn’t forgiven him for the Fall. “I want . . .I want you to ---”

“-- Don’t--”

John’s other hand took him by the shoulder, and now he was gripped hard by both hands, so close to an embrace.

“This isn’t about what you want,” John said, abruptly releasing him and returning to his seat by the fire. “I told you. We do this my way, or not at all. You’ve kept a secret from me, all this time. Until tonight. I don’t want secrets between us, Sherlock. Not any more. I want what’s real. Not a game. Tell me the truth now. Is this real?”

A secret that had been kept-- until tonight. This wasn’t about the Fall after all. This was about the secret life of Sherlock Holmes, his life as a submissive. Not secret to some, but certainly secret from John Watson, which was apparently all that mattered.

He looked up at John, met his eyes, shining and intent.

“Yes, John. This is real.”

John took off the mask.

# # #

“You were going to sell yourself at the auction tomorrow to the highest bidder. Why?”

If there was a bridge that stretched between them, a bridge that would lead them to each other and then still farther, to where they needed to go, it was suspended over treacherous waters that could dash them to pieces. John was asking -- no, demanding-- that he reveal his most intimate parts. Not his body, that meant little, but what he felt, what he wanted, what he needed. What he was.

This was not actually a new dilemma. Doms always tried to get inside his head, sooner or later. None succeeded.

“I should think that rather obvious,” he ventured gamely, with more sarcasm than he intended. He swallowed hard.

There was a long silence. They were very far out in the country, and it was very late. There were no soothing sounds of teeming London to distract him. Only the faint mechanical sound of the electric fire and the hum of his own blood rushing in his ears.

John shook his head in a gentle, disapproving gesture. Sherlock’s heart dropped. He often did things of which John Watson disapproved, but that were necessary. But disappointing John felt terrible. He could think of few things that felt worse.

“I see I haven’t made myself clear,” John said. “This is real. You agreed, yes? Yet you’ve refused to answer a straightforward question. And you’ve been rude about it.”

There wasn’t really anything to say about that, it was true, and he knew it. But he couldn’t just go on apologising all night. John said that this was going to go his way, or not at all. John-- or rather this John, a John he didn’t know-- was rather clearly not interested in his apologies.

“I have the card with your stipulations. For the auction. I am going to read them out, and you are going to answer my questions about them.”

“All right.” It was intriguing that John wanted to verify his stipulations. Perhaps he hoped that he would waive some of them now.

He hadn’t had the chance to even consider such a thing in respect to John as a dom. But his considered it now.

The conclusion he came to was that if John wanted him to, he would tear up the entire list.

_“No penetrative sex acts.”_

John stumbled a bit over the stipulation. As many crimes as they had solved together, they had unfortunately become accustomed by necessity to discussing the most graphic scenarios. He had never detected in John even the slightest hint of prudish reticence, nor on the other hand of macho, Army-style humour, where sex was involved. And in his wildest dreams or nightmares, he hadn’t thought John ever thought of him in that way.

He knew, of course, that John was curious about his sex life. He also knew that there were times when, against his own inclinations, John was attracted to him, whether he realised it or not. On the whole, after weighing the evidence, he had decided long ago that John didn’t realise it. The man was willfully, bullishly ignorant about anything that threatened his carefully controlled self-image.

That meant, he figured, that (unlike himself), John had never allowed himself to indulge in daydreams about what it was, exactly, and with specificity, that Sherlock Holmes did for sex.

But he was thinking about it now.

“Correct,” Sherlock said.

“Why?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes dramatically “Well, do you yourself, John --”

John folded his arms. “You’re terrible at this. Are you trying to make me punish you? Tell the truth, or I’ll stop.”

Sherlock cursed himself. John already wanted to stop. He wasn’t what John wanted. John wanted Jason, the skillful submissive who anticipated his dom’s every desire and performed flawlessly and without rebellion-- unless rebellion was what was wanted, in which case the pliable Jason could perform a convincing facsimile.

Most doms would have Sherlock bound, gagged and under the crop by now for disobedience. Which was exactly what he wanted, generally. What he didn’t want was to answer these questions.

Tell the truth.

“Maybe. Ah . . .yes.”

Sherlock’s gaze darted around the lounge to see if John had any implements at hand. There was a black duffle bag at the foot of the sofa that must have been strapped to the motorbike. He really needed to know what was in the bag.

“Duly noted.” John shifted against the sofa. “Eyes on me, Sherlock. Answer the question.”

A little finger of anticipation plucked at his spine. Sherlock understood games. He liked to win and would do anything at all to ensure it. Until this moment he hadn’t been sure John wasn’t playing some sort of game with him, for obscure reasons, despite claiming that he didn’t want there to be any games between them at all. But John assured him this wasn’t a game.

# # #

He looked into John’s eyes as ordered.

“I just-- can’t. It. . . feels wrong. To me.”

“Right. Okay. Can tell me what you mean when you say it feels ‘wrong’?”

This was his doctor’s voice, warm but professional and a little commanding. It made him want to tell John things.

“It feels like . . .” He took a deep breath, remembering. “It feels like being. . . invaded. There’s no way to control it. Well, not for a sub. . . or at least, not in a way that I can . . . endure.”

John blinked, but held his gaze steadily. His left hand clenched the arm of the sofa.

“Very good,” he said softly.

The praise was such an intense relief that he almost sagged to the floor. He trembled.

_“I will perform fellatio if ordered.”_

“Correct.”

“Does that mean you usually object to giving blow jobs?” John shifted again. It was becoming hard to hide the fact that he was aroused. John quickly palmed himself, apparently trying to subdue his erection.

“Usually. But -- it’s a compromise.”

“Compromise?”

“In light of my other stipulations. One must be practical or one can’t find a suitable engagement. And . . . I’ll safeword if I must.”

John’s expulsion of breath, nostrils flared, made Sherlock think he was about to come to him now, maybe order him to put his mouth on his cock, and suck. John said this was real but he couldn’t help testing him. He deliberately licked his lips, parted them. They would be shining in the firelight, he knew. He wondered if John would ask him next about the circumstances under which he did not object to sucking his dom off.

Until now, that was usually when his dom allowed him sufficient freedom to avoid it turning into violent throat-fucking-- which was almost never. Something about his mouth and neck seemed to inevitably invite doms to abuse his throat in that way. And he hated to swallow.

“Your safewords are as stated here? ‘Yellow’ means approaching your limits, ‘red’ means stop?

“Yes.”

“I want you to have new ones,” John said vehemently. “Can you do that for me?”

A violent thrill shook him as he nodded, speechless. John was taking a step to claiming him.

# # #

“I want you to think about that. Now, the next stipulation. ' _I will not be brought to climax_.'” John’s clinical tone fell away, it was thick with desire, or more, and it was too much, suddenly. Sherlock’s throat was dry and he was shaking all over, just as if he had in actually endured a severe whipping. But John wanted to know, and he found that hard though it was, he wanted to tell him. No secrets.

He thought carefully about how to explain.

“I’m not a sub for the pleasure of it. That has never been what it’s about, for me.”

“Go on.”

“It’s about . . . my mind. It requires stimulation.”

“I know that.”

“But you don’t. Not really. No one can know. My mind craves stimulation. But -- it gets away from me, sometimes. Like a runaway train. Or a song in your head that won’t stop, but it’s not one song, it’s a hundred. Or a thousand. But the pain -- it stops it. Very specific pain, administered with the correct skills and in sufficient variety -- it helps me. To get out of my head. It’s very hard to find anything else that does that for me. Drugs can do it, but I ---well.”

John frowned, visibly struggling with this. Now he was questioning participating in this new dynamic. Which he didn’t want to be a game, but which was the realest game that Sherlock knew. Except one. Now John would want to fix this.

John always wanted to save him from himself.

“You’re a doctor, you can understand this. The neural stimulation of pain causes other forms of mental activity to be interrupted during the experience of pain, and for some time afterward. And so . . . ”

He looked down, not wanting John to see that this had made him think about what he most wanted to avoid thinking of, that terrible cellar in Serbia, the methodical beatings, his efforts to distract himself from pain sometimes too great even for him to bear in his exhaustion and loneliness.

The distant howling of wolves in the hills had been his one distraction, his only companion. He believed that the wolves felt his pain and howled in grief for him.

# # #

“And so . . . you don’t let your doms make you come,” John’s voice was full of tenderness and pity, “because you think you shouldn’t get any pleasure out of it.”

“I -- I don’t want to become that kind of sub.”

“What do you mean? Why shouldn’t you let yourself, feel, well, good?”

Memories of Serbia made this into something he didn’t want anymore. He was feeling far too exposed. Maybe they still had hours yet before John had to go, but the time was going far too fast and yet far too slow. It was too much, and he didn’t want to answer any more questions, didn’t want to be inside his own head anymore. He needed what John apparently was determined not to give him.

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” he sneered with his poshest, most cut-glass enunciation. He glared up at John, daring him to correct him.

John nodded as though Sherlock had just verified something he had been trying to work out in his own head. Then he went to the foot of the sofa, unzipped the black leather case, and brought out a pair of padded cuffs and a ball gag.

“This isn’t the right time to meddle with your safewords, Sherlock. So. Hold this.” He gave Sherlock a thick red cord, knotted at both ends, and made sure Sherlock held it firmly.

The cord was for use when a sub was gagged. If the sub needed to safeword, they let the cord fall.

Sherlock stared at the cord, then the cuffs.

These were not toys. John was prepared to deliver serious discipline tonight.

John hadn’t bought these things at some cheap sex shop in Soho. The light was dim but his expert eye could still see they were handmade, most probably at the very shop where he procured his own implements. This thought brought him to the sudden recognition that John knew more about him that he had understood. Much, much more.

He tried to work his way back, fact upon fact, trying to form a working hypothesis as to how this could possibly have happened, when John took his hands and swiftly locked the cuffs around his wrists. He was going to ask about where he had gotten them when John put a finger to his lips. He considered sucking them, but John’s expression left him uncertain as to what was really happening.

“Open your mouth.”

Sherlock stubbornly clenched his jaw, shook his head so that his curls tossed. The sooner he could make John lose his temper, the sooner he would be punished. He longed to feel the crop at last wielded by John’s hand.

John worked a strong, thick finger between his lips and nudged in the ball gag, fastening the strap securely. He could have bitten John’s finger but he didn’t want to embarrass himself more than he already was beginning to feel. John was ignoring his rebelliousness and lack of respect anyway.

The ball gag was the perfect size, sufficient to stop him talking, but not so uncomfortable as to make his jaw ache. The firm grip of the cuffs settled him. Soon John would bring him delicious pain, and he just knew it was going to be better by far than any other dom had ever given him. Despite his keeping secrets, the truth was that no one understood him better than John Watson.

# # #

“Are you comfortable?”

Sherlock didn’t glare this time, but nodded his head proudly in the affirmative. He would show John what he was made of.

“Good. Because I want to address your final stipulation. It says here you are ‘ _recovering from an injury and cannot endure intense physical discipline, bondage, or confinement until the New Year.’_ Are you sure you are all right?”

Sherlock nodded. This was nothing.

John cleared his throat. “It’s because of your bullet wound? It still hurts?”

Sherlock hesitated, then nodded. It was actually more than just the bullet wound in his chest. The scars in his back were healed, but the skin there was hyper-sensitive to the slightest pressure. It had been an agony hiding them from John in hospital. Mostly he had lain on his back to conceal them. It was most comfortable to sleep on his stomach, but after Mary shot him in the chest, that position too became too painful.

When home alone in 221b, he slept now on his side, a position he had never liked and which kept him restless all night. Still, in deciding to offer himself in this years’ slave auction, he had calculated that he would be more or less healed, or as healed as he needed to be, by the New Year.

“There’s more. It’s not just because of the bullet wound. I can see you thinking, it’s in your eyes.”

Sherlock shook his head somewhat frantically, but John stilled him, at last putting his hands on him again. He had been afraid that he wouldn’t.

“Sit very still,” John said, and began carefully unbuttoning Sherlock’s shirt. He never wore undershirts and so his bare skin was immediately exposed to John’s gaze. He wasn’t sure if he longed for John to see or if he wanted to hide himself. John pulled him closer to the light of the fire and softly touched the edges of the round, puckered scar on his chest.

“Does that hurt?”

Sherlock shook his head, his chest heaving. He considered letting the cord fall, stopping John from exploring further. He saw John look down at his hand to confirm that he still held it fast. Then he slowly pulled the shirt down over his shoulders, unrolling it as far as it would go down his arms, pinning him even more securely.

The warmth of the fire did not soothe the cold dread as John finally saw the map of scars across the alabaster flesh of his back, the price he had paid to keep John safe. He touched the thickest one, the one on his shoulder, with his fingertip. His scar clock. John’s hot tear fell on his shoulder and slid down his back.

He unfastened the ball gag.

“You should have told me, Sherlock. No more secrets. Say it.” His voice shook with grief and passion.

“No more secrets,” Sherlock said. He wasn’t sure if he could live up to it, but it was what John needed to hear, and he wanted to give John what John needed.

# # #

John bent to unlock the cuffs, but Sherlock pulled back. Respectfully.

“Leave them. Please.”

John’s eyes shone with a sudden carnivorous intensity and he pulled Sherlock close by his cuffed wrists.

“I’m going to respect every single one of your stipulations. I want that understood from the start. The only way that will ever change is if you ask me to. And probably not even then.”

“Does that mean. . . you want me to be your slave?”

“You were going to sell yourself to someone else tomorrow night. Now this time, you’re going to answer what you didn’t answer before, just so you don’t think I didn’t notice, or that you can get away with it. Why were you going to do that?”

“Because you-- you chose Mary. And so I thought it didn’t matter what I did with myself. At least I could have something. Instead of nothing. I knew I’d never have you. Especially as it appears Mary will kill anyone whom she thinks will come between you and her. ”

“That’s right, and we aren’t going to let her. We’re going to have to work together. I have a plan. But I don’t want to talk about that yet.”

“You didn’t answer my question either,” Sherlock said boldly, not caring if John thought he was overstepping his bounds. He wanted to hear John say it.

“Nobody else is ever going to own you, ever again. If this is what you want, if this is what you need, the only person you are going to belong to is me.”

John pulled him by the cuffs until they were both on the sofa, careful not to push his back against the cushions.

“There’s so much I want. But I’m not like you, Sherlock. It can’t just be about pain. Not for me. And I’m not sure I can give you what you’re looking for. But I can’t live with you going with anyone else.”

“You went with Mary.”

“God! I know, I’ve been a fool! But you didn’t exactly help me. I meant it when I said all I needed was one word. You still let me.”

Sherlock dropped the red cord. John looked at it where it fell, his eyes wide.

“Oh god, what happened -- is it the cuffs?”

Sherlock tilted his head back invitingly. “No. More. Talking.”

John took his mouth then with the bravery of a soldier, with his whole strength and determination and desire, feeling his way with sharp bites of those lush lips. Sherlock dropped any impulse to deploy submissive tricks, just feeling the kiss unfold, John leading the way as was proper for his dom. It was apparent that John intended to take his time and make it count, giving devoted attention to first his bottom lip, then his top, until Sherlock was almost dizzy with it, and while his stipulations technically prohibited penetration, this kiss was more intimate by far than any fucking had ever been. The very idea that he might someday ask John to fuck him made him flush and writhe under John’s mouth, until they were both a slick mess and the raw chafing from John’s stubble crushed the delicate skin around his lips. It felt glorious.

He groaned into John’s mouth, inviting him to press harder, bite rougher, and John pursued with a dominant growl that made his legs drop open without volition. The exquisite sting of it, the promise of more delicious pain yet to come, was making him hard. He didn’t try to suppress it. He didn’t care what happened now. His mouth would look red and raw in the morning. Marked by his dom. He suddenly wanted to take John’s cock between his swollen lips, see what it would take to make him scream with pleasure.

He pushed his trapped hands down to tug at John’s zips, feeling the heat and length of him under the palm of his hand for the first time.

John stopped his hand with a groan.

“No you don’t. I didn’t ask, and I’m not nearly ready for that. Not until I say, is that understood?”

Sherlock stared up at John, his hair a wild mess, his storm-blue eyes wilder, intent, covetous.

He nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“You’ve disobeyed me several times tonight. We've got to start as we mean to go on. Go to my bag. Bring me the riding crop.”


	18. Chapter Eighteen: Limbic

John unlocked the cuffs and watched Sherlock cross the room on unsteady legs to the black duffle bag, kneel and open it to secure what he had been ordered to bring him. He needed the moment to collect himself.

He hadn’t really intended to start out by kissing Sherlock. He hadn’t kissed any of the subs Kate had brought him. Nor had he ever considered kissing Jason Kilbraith, or Edwin Veere, for that matter. Kissing meant vulnerability and intimacy. Both were antithetical to his desperate, haunted quest after the ghost of Sherlock Holmes. The truth was he and Mary had never really got into the knack of kissing either, neither one of them really ever seeming to press for it other than perfunctory pecks coming and going from home to work and back.

John pushed away the remembrance of James Sholto, and of a single bittersweet kiss that held the promise of so much more, because it only served to remind him that this path with Sherlock, the man he loved and esteemed more than anyone else, most especially his perfidious wife, was almost certainly doomed.

One way or another.

It was no comfort at all to know that they probably always had been.

# # #

Sherlock rose with not one but two riding crops, one in each hand which he swung slightly with a practiced air. Still, his eyes looked anxious beneath his confident swagger, John thought. His mind was clearly racing, nothing new there.

He was probably having second -- and third -- thoughts about putting himself under the crop to an inexperienced dom with an intermittent tremor in his hand, a psychosomatic limp, trouble with drink, and prone to lashing out in sudden fits of rage -- all of which as he had been assured by his own doctor were more or less his “new normal” resulting from his PTSD, muffled only in the most ineffective of ways by his pills.

He hadn’t taken a pill for more than 24 hours, and the simmering nervous current under his skin that had propelled him from opening the black Prospectus envelope through to this moment was threatening to spark into something altogether less under his control.

Something dangerous.

Unbidden, he saw Sherlock’s bloody nose in the kebab shop the night he came home, his eyes sad and defeated. It would be better if he took one of his pills. But that wrapped-in-cotton-wool feeling was definitely not what he wanted to feel, even if he wasn’t certain what he was actually feeling now.

Sherlock knelt and held up each of the crops, watching with those avid eyes to see what John would do.

John shook his head. Sherlock was already recovering himself from the madness of moments ago and attempting to gain the upper hand. Now he was giving the appearance of compliance with John’s order to bring him the crop, while actually administering some sort of unspoken test to John as his dom -- which crop would John chose? Did he appreciate the difference between them? If he did, how would he make the choice which to use, and why?

He held out his hand. “Give me my crop, Sherlock. Put yours down. I’m sure you know the difference . . . even after more than two years.”

Sherlock appeared all indifference as he politely handed over John’s crop and laid his own on the scarlet and gold Turkish carpet. John had a vivid momentary fantasy of Sherlock naked, bound and laid out against the brilliant colours for him to do with as he willed.

He grabbed cushions from the sofa and threw them down.

“Turn around and face the fireplace. Hands and knees. Use the cushions for your knees and arms. I want you comfortable.”

The flicker of uncertainty and maybe disappointment in Sherlock’s eyes surprised him. Maybe he had read John’s thought. He knew Sherlock could read him better than anyone.

The truth was after reading Sherlock’s stipulations and seeing for the first time, incredibly, the horrible scars on his back, he was sure that what he was about to do, and what Sherlock wanted him to do, was right. He would be the one to give Sherlock what he needed.

He had been afraid that at this moment of crossing into this new dynamic, he would simply lose his nerve, either out of pity or fear. But the knowledge that otherwise, Sherlock would simply sell himself to another dom tomorrow night was intolerable, unthinkable.

The crop felt alive in the palm of his hand, and Sherlock was on his hands and knees, his arse presented to him with perfect poise. He wasn’t going to ask Sherlock to disrobe for this. But as he had only examined Sherlock’s back, he had to be sure that the scarring wasn’t more extensive than he had seen in the firelight.

“If I keep away from your back, will you be . . . all right?”

“Yes.”

Sherlock’s voice was soft, even serene. He seemed almost content.

John intended to remedy that.

“Lower your shoulders and rest your head on your hands.”

Sherlock obeyed, resting his face against his folded forearms. His curls fell against his cheekbone. He expelled a breath.

John looked away from the arousing sight of Sherlock’s plush arse presented so perfectly, and gave the crop a swing for practice.

“Count for me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Not sir. Call me John.”

“Yes. . . John.”

John swung wide and laid a perfect stroke across the very roundest part of the buttock, at half strength. The whizz of the crop through the air and the snap against Sherlock’s expensive trousers delivered a delicious spike of power to his arm. The flesh of Sherlock’s arse quivered beneath the thin taut fabric.

John pictured the bright pink flush of the stripe blooming against pale, firm flesh.

“One.”

The cool, contemptuous tone Sherlock had used in the auction on the mobile was gone.  Sherlock’s voice was controlled, but deep and thick with suppressed excitement or desire. He didn’t flinch, but spread his legs wider. John was almost certain this was meant to tantalise rather than steady himself.

He immediately laid another, very hard stroke against the back of Sherlock’s thighs.

“I didn’t give you leave to move. Be still.”

“Two.”

Sherlock didn’t cry out or flinch even though the backs of the thighs were more sensitive than the buttocks and the sting should be intense. But he had no intention of turning this into a test of how much pain Sherlock could take. After seeing the scars, that was out of the question.

What he was interested was how to make Sherlock trust him.

He returned to the buttocks, striking lower now, almost the crease of the thigh. Another particularly sensitive area. He delivered a light, quick stroke, barely more than a sting.

“Three.”

Sherlock sighed a bit. Maybe suppressing a groan of frustration.

Sherlock was, John knew from the vanished videos, used to severe whippings from Guy Clement-- and probably others. Undoubtedly this was not the intensity of sensation that he sought to “take him out of his head.”

He swore under his breath. He had made Clement pay for that. In blood. But maybe he had also made him pay for making him see Sherlock that way.

And for making him want it.

No more secrets.

# # #

“I really didn’t want to leave the club, you know.”

“No?”

He understood Sherlock’s surprise. This cottage had just the sort of traditional domestic comfort and tranquility that he would very much enjoy, given the opportunity. Memories of the Crossed Keys Inn at Dartmoor, a cozy fire, a bed nearly shared.

“I had a plan. I felt I needed one. You’ve probably already deduced that I haven’t been doing, ah, this-- very long. It’s all right. I’m not trying to pretend I’m anything . . . that I’m not.”

He let that sink in, watched Sherlock’s head twist a bit to try and see his face. He gave another snap of the crop. Still, even through those tight trousers, Sherlock was probably feeling the warmth blossom. He squirmed just a fraction.

“Stay still. I’m going to tell you about my plan. I don’t want you to speak unless I ask you to, just listen. Do you remember that I said I didn’t want any more secrets between us?”

Sherlock nodded.

“I haven’t been fair, because there’s something, something that happened, something that you don’t know. It happened after, ah. . . “ he gripped the crop tighter, “you. . . died. I visited your grave, three years to the day from the day we met. And I told you that I was in love with you--”

He was not going to weep. He absolutely was not.

“--John --”

“--No, I’m going to finish. I told you that I wished I had told you that when you were still alive. Then that night, a man came to me with a case. It was a sort of missing persons case, except the man wasn’t really missing. That man was Edwin Veere, and the man he was looking for was Jason Kilbraith.”

A sort of ripple visibly rocked Sherlock’s prone body, and he grasped at the pillow under his arms until the knuckle bones shone white. He was clearly struggling not to speak, as ordered. He gave a frustrated grunt.

Sherlock was obviously imaging the likely scenarios that had unfolded between him, Edwin and Jason, now that he understood that he was a dom.

“The thing is, Veere gave me a mobile belonging to Jason Kilbraith. It had some videos on it. . . videos of, ah, you---”

“-- ohhhh god,” Sherlock groaned, “no nonononono--”

“Shhhh. Later, you can say whatever you want. I need to tell you. Remember that I thought you were dead, then. And when I saw the first video, I . . . I knew then what I’d lost, all of it. I knew what you had been trying to show me, just before you . . .left. I knew that I wanted that, wanted you, more than anything I had ever wanted before in my life. Even though you were -- gone -- I just had to know. Everything. I went to Kate, and she helped me train until I felt. . . capable. And then -- I went to Guy Clement’s house in Thingvellir.”

Sherlock was trembling so hard he was near collapsing to the floor.

“Get up now, and sit here where I can see your face,” John indicated the carpet at his feet.

Sherlock sat, legs crossed, his face flushed almost dark. But he kept his eyes down, and John decided not to order him to give up that sliver of privacy. He could see his face, which is what he wanted.

“And so I had a plan tonight. I was going to strap you to a saltire cross. And I was going to use this --” he smacked the crop against his own palm -- “until. . . well, it was, ah, a privilege to see those videos. A gift. But they were making me want to try to prove something, Sherlock. And that’s not what I want this to be about. It was a bad plan.”

Sherlock’s eyes flickered up and away again.

“Okay. Maybe I should have told you before. But I said no secrets, and I meant it. Now, it’s your turn.”

Sherlock’s head snapped up and he glared up at him with mixed mortification and pride burning in his eyes.

“I want those videos. I knew Guy filmed me, he’s a voyeur. And he enjoyed showing me off. But Guy would never let those videos out of his possession. They weren’t meant for . . .”

“You resent me having seen them? Are you sure?”

Sherlock bit his lip, considering. They were still reddened from kissing, but not enough.

“No,” he whispered. “But I don’t know how to feel, John-- knowing you saw me like. . . that.”

“You were beautiful. You are. Another thing I should have told you before.”

Sherlock looked stunned, as though it had genuinely never occurred to him that John would think of him in that way.

He considered telling Sherlock the rest of the story, about beating Clement near to death, and about him being imprisoned for murdering his subs. There had been quite enough confession tonight. He would make just one more.

“But now I’m glad we’re here, because I don’t think I needed that plan after all. I don’t want to be anything like Guy Clement was to you. Follow me.”

# # #

John went to the bedroom.

“I want to give you a chance to reconsider. Do you still want this, after what I’ve said?”

There was a long silence where they looked at each other, the images of Clement’s videos of Sherlock naked and thoroughly whipped, hovering between them.

“Yes. Please. John.”

“Then take off your clothes and lay on the bed. Face-down.”

John watched, crop in hand, as Sherlock removed his clothes. He had seen the videos and so already thought he knew the breathtaking geometry of Sherlock’s body, broad shoulders, narrow waist above rounded hips and buttocks that even he could see were made for the crop, his hard torso and limbs all whipcord and muscle under pale flesh that showed blue veins like marble.

His slender fingers lingered at the band of his black briefs. John knew he wasn’t teasing. He had asked for what was real, and now they were both going to get it. No more hiding the truth. He didn’t move or breathe until Sherlock finally tugged the briefs down and let them fall.

His cock was partially hard, hanging long and thick against his thigh, framed by close trimmed dark hair that looked like it would be silky. A tiny bead of moisture shone at the tip. John inhaled sharply, his own cock springing full and very hard against his pants. He almost ordered him to stand and display so he could savour seeing his body fully naked under his gaze at last.

But he wanted even more to give Sherlock a taste of what he hoped could be between them. He nodded, indicating the bed, and Sherlock lay down quietly, folding his arms and resting his head, his legs slightly spread.

“Wait, and don’t move.”

He went to the duffle and removed ankle cuffs and a spreader bar. He exchanged his own crop for the one he had found on the top shelf of Sherlock’s closet. It felt much better in his hand, but he hadn’t felt it was right to use it until he had told Sherlock what he needed to say.

He paused to appreciate the sight of Sherlock laid out before him, the scars on his back giving him a terrible, almost ethereal beauty, like an angel whose wings had been brutally hacked away. His plush arse bore the faintest hint of pink from the few strokes he had delivered.

“You all but forced Clement to whip you at the limit you could take. Not that he didn’t want to.”

“I don’t want to talk of him.”

“I won’t, I promise. But I understand better than you think about what you said-- about the pain helping to stop your mind from tormenting you with intrusive thoughts. I am a doctor, you know. I went to medical school. Studied a fair bit of neurology, as a matter of fact. More than you might have expected. You need a lot of neuroscience to do surgery on people’s spines and skulls, you know. Which any field surgeon needs to do without inadvertently crippling a man, or worse.”

“Then you know that pain helps me detach from the control of my cerebral cortex--”

“And lets you access your limbic brain, which is the centre for pain, pleasure, and sex,” John finished. “Yes, I know. And I’m going to give it to you.”

For anyone else in the world, this sort of talk would be the opposite of arousing. But John knew Sherlock. He was listening very intently and if anything, more aroused than before, especially at the thought of John’s competent surgeon’s hands on him.

“Are you comfortable?”

“Yes. Quite.”

“Good. Because you’ll be there a long time. Probably an hour, maybe longer.”

Sherlock’s shoulders stiffened. He didn’t like the sound of that.

“I don’t want you to be quiet unless that’s how you feel. I want to hear you. And of course you will safeword if you need it. But I won’t push you in that way, I want that clear. Not tonight. But I have to trust you that you will do that for me. Promise?”

“I promise.” This sounded both grudging and doubtful, although he could tell Sherlock tried to sound respectful.

John snapped on the ankle cuffs and affixed the spreader bar so that Sherlock’s legs were forced apart. His buttocks parted temptingly. His cock found this display to be almost too much, and he palmed himself for the second time tonight, trying to get his erection to subside enough that he could focus on what he was about to do rather than his desire to come.

He knew Sherlock could hear what he was doing, knew exactly the state his cock was in. He gave an erotic little writhe against the sheets, just to make himself look that much more vulnerable, that much more tempting.

“All right, Sherlock, you’re going to pay for that,” he said almost amiably, and laid in a gentle stroke across the centre of his arse, just enough to make the flesh dance, enough to sting, not nearly enough to qualify as actual pain in Sherlock’s books. He repeated this a few inches lower, then a few inches higher, until the whole of the plump globes of his buttocks were rosy pink and begging for more. He thrust his hips to present his arse higher for the crop.

The crop was perfectly weighted. “You really did a beautiful job with this crop,” he said, laying another almost feather-light stroke at the top of those long pale thighs, spread wide for him. “It fits like it’s part of my hand. I can do this all night.”

At this, Sherlock momentarily lost composure. “No, harder, please, John.”

He waited until Sherlock was still again before laying a feather-light touch in the crease of his arse, almost a tickle. Sherlock groaned and squirmed.

“The more you squirm, the longer this will take,” he observed. “I’m enjoying this either way.”

“I’m not,” Sherlock snarled. “Harder, for god’s sake!”

John dragged the crop lightly over the pink mottled flesh, which rippled a little at the touch, then withdrew it altogether.

“I believe I made this clear we are doing this my way.”

“But -- I can’t feel a thing! Are you trying to drive me out of my mind?”

“Yes. But not the way you think. That’s enough back talk. Keep your mouth shut now.”

He laid in another dozen light strokes at a leisurely pace, just enough to sting and redden, no more. But he slowly increased the speed and instead of random blows, he settled into a precise pattern from the top of the buttocks down to the top of the thigh, and back again, a steady, constant rain of light, quick snaps that felt little more, he imagined, than a pinch.

But under the continual stimulation Sherlock’s arse was getting redder, and faint swellings were beginning to rise in the tenderest flesh. He was starting to succumb to the rhythm of John’s blows even if they weren’t the violent stimulation that he craved, and his hips rocked up and back in concert with John’s steady hand despite the strict confinement of his legs.

After twenty minutes of this a soft moan escaped his lips. He was enduring pain so slight as to be almost more an irritant than suffering, like an itch that one cannot scratch. It was making him almost dizzy with frustration.

“That’s good,” John praised him. His moan triggered John’s cock, the hot blood shooting into it and expanding so that he could barely stand. For a reward, he brought the crop down hard and fast, a sharp crack across the thickest part of his arse.

Sherlock was far too experienced to cry out, but he flinched just slightly before eagerly pressing his arse up for what he craved.

“More,” he begged, his voice composed but a full octave lower, John figured to weaken his resolve. It nearly worked. It would be so easy to unleash his arm and rain blows down on that beautiful, needy arse until he screamed in pleasure and pain. So easy.

Holding back and giving Sherlock something entirely more subtle, tender and therefore difficult was a much greater challenge.

He focused on returning to the pattern he had established, slow, soft blows that traveled up and down and back again, Sherlock rocking his arse up and back to invite more friction, more sting.

“Please, John,” he gasped after half an hour of this treatment, his entire arse stinging and hot but craving so much more.

“Patience,” John said. “I know you can do this. I want you to show me you can do this.”

# # #

He wasn’t at all sure that Sherlock actually cared about pleasing him.

What he had seen on the videos and his own long intimacy with the man had taught him that, no matter how appearances might make it seem otherwise, Sherlock usually did exactly as he pleased without regard to anybody else. But Sherlock settled back into the mattress and submitted to the slow tormenting blows, his body visibly relaxing into the deliberate rhythm John set.

After forty-five minutes, John’s arm was beginning to ache but it didn’t register in his lust-filled brain. They had fallen into a sort of trance, where the pain, heat and desire coursing through Sherlock’s body leaped up John’s arm and down his cock like an electric charge. Sometimes, but not always, if Sherlock gasped or moaned, John rewarded him with a single hard stroke, precise and elegant, each one making it harder than the last to settle back into accepting John’s gentle torment.

Finally he dropped the crop and switched to a flogger with long, soft suede tails.

“Please,” Sherlock said.

“You want me to stop? Answer me.”

Sherlock’s hips bucked. “No. But please, John --”

He laid a firm slap of the flogger across his well-reddened arse, the hot swelling having been raised so gently and over such a length of time as to be more than ready to accept more. He delivered a half dozen firm strokes in quick succession.

“Ah,” Sherlock gasped. “That’s good.”

John could sense him start to float on the sensations he was being given without fighting, anticipating or desiring anything beyond the moment. His plump arse glowed. John paused to run his hand gently over the heat, which Sherlock accepted without flinching or pressing up into the caress. He let his thumb gently graze the edge of his pink hole, just visible where the spreader bar forced his buttocks to part. Sherlock shuddered at the touch and John’s cock could stand no more.

He straddled Sherlock, kneeling over him so that he could caress and knead the hot flesh, imagining how it must feel, swollen and burning under the slightly rough skin of his palm. Sherlock was moaning steadily now, seemingly lost in sensation.

He unzipped his trousers and freed his cock, an impossibly stiff rod that felt molded of iron in his hand. With one hand he massaged and pinched that luscious, well-stroked arse, and with the other he stroked his own cock, his balls hot and very heavy, and he couldn’t resist pressing them just a little against the crease of Sherlock’s buttocks, just a slight brush and no more, before pulling back hard.

“Ah, fuck,” he swore. “I can’t believe how you make me feel.”

He wanted to turn Sherlock over and order him to touch himself, make himself come. He had to be hard now, needing release as much as he did. But that wasn’t what Sherlock wanted, and he had promised to abide by his stipulations.

He didn’t try to hold back, couldn’t have. The sight of Sherlock laid out below him, the sound of his unrestrained moans of mixed pain and desire, were too much to bear. He had only to touch his agonised cock with one firm stroke down its rigid veined length and he was coming across that perfectly reddened, burning arse with a shout. He held himself up so that he didn’t press against Sherlock, rub his still-hard cock against those stinging buttocks, and push.

# # #

He leaned down and pressed a gentle, fervent kiss between Sherlock’s shoulderblades, feeling the raised scarring under his lips. He trailed kisses to the shell of Sherlock’s ear.

“Are you all right?”

Sherlock stirred beneath him, let out a soft gasp.

“I’ll be right back.” He wanted to clean the come off Sherlock’s arse with a cool moist towel to soothe his stings.

“No.” His voice was thick and slurred.

“You’re not all right?” His heart plummeted. He had wanted to give Sherlock something special for their first time, something long and slow, only incrementally venturing into real pain.

“I don’t want you to stop.”

“Why am I not surprised. But it’s time to stop. Just rest.  I’m taking off the cuffs now.”

He removed the cuffs and the spreader bar, and gently massaged his legs.

“Turn over onto your side.”

Sherlock complied. His cock was long and hard and nearly as red as his arse. There was a dark patch on the sheets where he had leaked.

_I will not be brought to climax_

“You can come,” he said. “If you want to come, touch yourself.”

If he had expected Sherlock to be reticent or shy about it based on his stipulation against coming during a scene, he was mistaken. Sherlock locked his gaze on him, took his cock in his hand and started to move, slow and deliberate, letting John get the pleasure of watching. It was the most gorgeous thing he thought he had ever seen, those long, elegant fingers manipulating the long, hard cock, smearing himself with the clear precome until it was a glistening mess, the tip almost purple with engorged blood. He wanted desperately to touch, but wouldn’t unless Sherlock asked.

He knelt possessively over Sherlock as he stroked, and took his own cock in his hand, already so hard and needy again. Their lips hovered together, warm breath mingling, and their mouths opened to one another, wet and greedy, and they cried their pleasure into each other’s mouths when they came.

# # #

John stared up at the dark ceiling. Sherlock was very quiet.

He had expected questions from Sherlock: about his confession that he was in love with him, about his becoming a dom because of the videos of Sherlock with Guy Clement, even though he had thought he was dead.

He wasn’t sorry he had said these things tonight. He was truly finished with secrets and lies, and it felt very right that Sherlock knew the truth now, after all this time. Even if it was probably too late.

Sherlock was right not to want to talk about his dramatic confession. There were more important things to talk about now than feelings. He probably didn’t even know what to say.

Sherlock Holmes didn’t believe in love. He had always known this. Sherlock had reminded John of this quite forcefully at the wedding.

He was about to start the difficult discussion of what to do to avoid being killed by his pregnant assassin wife, when he noticed a framed photo at the bedside table. Something about it drew his eye. He picked it up and switched on the lamp.

The photo was of James Sholto. He would know James anywhere.

Sherlock had been wrong. This house belonged to James, Mycroft had nothing to do with it.

The photo had been taken before his last deployment to Afghanistan. His face was smooth and unscarred. He looked happy, in a quiet sort of way. A slight, diminutive woman with blue eyes and red hair was smiling up at him possessively, her arm linked in his.

This must be the fiancee that James had spoken of, but that he had never met. He and James had parted for good after being discharged and transported back to England, until he had made the nearly fatal decision to do him the honour of attending his wedding.

He looked closer. There was something naggingly familiar about the eyes, even though they were turned away from the camera. She wore an old-fashioned brooch pinned to her cardigan. He looked closer still.

It was, so far as he could discern, identical to a brooch that Mary wore frequently.

A family heirloom, she said.

**Author's Note:**

> Please share your comments and kudos with me, it means a lot. I thrive on feedback. Thank you for taking this journey with me.
> 
> G x

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover for This Is The Wonder That's Keeping The Stars Apart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7982869) by [Ghislainem70](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghislainem70/pseuds/Ghislainem70)




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